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Confront me with her — and then send me away if you like. 



THE NEW 
MAGDALEN 


WILKIE COLLINS 


Illustrated by 

JOHN SLOAN 


Charles Scribner’s Sons 
New York . . . 1908 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

OCT 29 1908 

Copyrignt Entry 

CLASS CL, No- 
COPY B. 




So t|)e ^emorp 

OF 

CHARLES ALLSTON COLLINS 

April q, 1873 



CONTENTS 


FIRST SCENE 

The Cottage on the Frontier 

PAGE 

Preamble i 

CHAPTER THE FIRST 

The Two Women 3 

CHAPTER THE SECOND 

Magdalen — in Modern Times 13 

CHAPTER THE THIRD 

The German Shell 20 

CHAPTER THE FOURTH 

The Temptation 29 

CHAPTER THE FIFTH 

The German Surgeon 37 

SECOND SCENE 
Mablethorpe House 

Preamble 51 

CHAPTER THE SIXTH 

Lady Janet’s Companion 53 

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH 

The Man Is Coming 64 

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH 

The Man Appears 81 

vii 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


CHAPTER THE NINTH 

News from Mannheim 9 ^ 

CHAPTER THE TENTH 

A Council of Three 104 

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH 

The Dead Alive 109 

CHAPTER THE TWELFTH 

Exit Julian 121 

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH 

Enter Julian 133 

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH 

Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before 142 

CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH 

A Woman’s Remorse 150 

CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH 

They Meet Again 163 

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH 

The Guardian Angel 171 

CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH 

The Search in the Grounds 182 

CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH 

The Evil Genius 195 

CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH 

The Policeman in Plain Clothes 204 

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST 

The Footstep in the Corridor 222 

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND 

The Man in the Dining-Room 237 

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD 

Lady Janet at Bay 252 


CONTENTS 


IX 


PAGE 

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH 

Lady Janet’s Letter 271 

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH 

The Confession 280 

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH 

Great Heart and Little Heart 290 

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Magdalen’s Apprenticeship 298 

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH 

Sentence Is Pronounced on Her 316 

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH 

The Last Trial 332 

EPILOGUE 

I 

Letter from Mr. Horace Holmcroft to Miss Grace Rose- 
berry 343 

II 

Letter from Miss Grace Roseberry to Mr. Horace Holm- 
croft •• 35 *^ 

III 

Letter from Mr. Horace Holmcroft to Miss Grace Rose- 

berry 352 

IV 

Extracts from the Diary of the Rev. Julian Gray . . . . 357 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

‘Confront me with her — and then send me away if you 


like’ Frontispiece 

Facing 

page 

She might he Grace Roseherry if she dared 32 '/ 

^Whoareyou?' 200 

‘It doesn’t end with this world,’ she whispered; ‘there’s 

a better world to come’ 338 





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FIRST SCENE 


THE COTTAGE ON THE FRONTIER 

PREAMBLE 

The place is France, 

The time is autumn, in the year eighteen hundred 
and seventy — the year of the war between France nad 
Germany, 

The persons are: Captain Arnault, of the French 
army; Surgeon Surville, of the French ambulance; 
Surgeon Wetzel, oj the German army; Mercy Merrick, 
attached as nurse to the French ambulance; and Grace 
Roseberry, a travelling lady on her way to England, 


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i 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


CHAPTER THE EIRST 

THE TWO WOMEN 

It was a dark night. The rain was pouring in tor- 
rents. 

Late in the evening a skirmishing party of the French, 
and a skirmishing party of the Germans, had met by 
accident, near the little village of Lagrange, close to 
the German frontier. In the struggle that followed, 
the French had (for once) got the better of the enemy. 
For the time, at least, a few hundreds out of the host 
of the invaders had been forced back over the frontier. 
It was a trifling affair, occurring not long after the great 
German victory of Weissenbourg, and the newspapers 
took little or no notice of it. 

Ca.ptain Arnault, commanding on the French side, 
sat alone in one of the cottages of the village, inhabited 
by the miller of the district. The captain was reading, 
by the light of a solitary tallow candle, some inter- 
cepted despatches taken from the Germans. He had 
suffered the wood fire, scattered over the large open 
grate, to burn low; the red embers only faintly illumi- 
nated a part of the room. On the floor behind him 
lay some of the miller’s empty sacks. In a corner op- 
posite to him was the miller’s solid walnut-wood bed. 
On the walls all round him were the miller’s coloured 
prints, representing a happy mixture of devotional and 
3 ' 


4 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


domestic subjects. A door of communication leading 
into the kitchen of the cottage had been torn from its 
hinges, and used to carry the men wounded in the 
skirmish from the field. They were now comfortably 
laid at rest in the kitchen, under the care of the French 
surgeon and the English nurse attached to the ambu- 
lance. A piece of coarse canvas screened the opening 
between the two rooms, in place of the door. A second 
door, leading from the bedchamber into the yard, was 
locked; and the wooden shutter protecting the one 
window of the room was carefully barred. Sentinels, 
doubled in number, were placed at all the outposts. 
The French commander had neglected no precaution 
which could reasonably insure for himself and for his 
men a quiet and comfortable night. 

Still absorbed in his perusal of the despatches, and 
now and then making notes of what he read by the 
help of writing materials placed at his side. Captain 
Arnault was interrupted by the appearance of an in- 
truder in the room. Surgeon Surville, entering from 
the kitchen, drew aside the canvas screen, and ap- 
proached the little round table at which his superior 
officer was sitting. 

‘What is it?’ said the captain sharply. 

‘A question to ask,’ replied the surgeon. ‘Are we 
safe for the night?’ 

‘ Why do you want to know ? ’ enquired the captain, 
suspiciously. 

The surgeon pointed to the kitchen — now the hos- 
pital devoted to the wounded men. 

‘The poor fellows are anxious about the next few 
hours,’ he replied. ‘They dread a surprise; and they 
ask me if there is any reasonable hope of their having 
one night’s rest. What do you think of the chances?’ 


THE TWO WOMEN 


5 

The captain shrugged his shoulders. The surgeon 
persisted. ‘Surely you ought to know?’ he said. 

‘I know that we are in possession of the village for 
the present,’ retorted Captain Arnault, ‘ and I know no 
more. Here are the papers of the enemy.’ He held 
them up, and shook them impatiently as he spoke. 
‘They give me no information that I can rely on. For 
all I can tell to the contrary, the main body of the 
Germans, outnumbering us ten to one, may be nearer 
this cottage than the main body of the French. Draw 
your own conclusions. I have nothing more to say.’ 

Having answered in those discouraging terms. Cap- 
tain Arnault got on his feet, drew the hood of his great- 
coat over his head, and lit a cigar at the candle. 

‘ Where are you going ? ’ asked the surgeon. 

‘To visit the outposts.’ 

‘ Do you want this room for a little while ? ’ 

‘Not for some hours to come. Are you thinking of 
moving any of your wounded men in here ? ’ 

‘I was thinking of the English lady,’ answered the 
surgeon. ‘The kitchen is not quite the place for her. 
She would be more comfortable here; and the English 
nurse might keep her company.’ 

Captain Arnault smiled, not very pleasantly. ‘ They 
are two fine women,’ he said, ‘ and Surgeon Surville is 
a ladies’ man. Let them come in, if they are rash 
enough to trust themselves here with you.’ He checked 
himself on the point of going out, and looked back dis- 
trustfully at the lighted candle. ‘ Caution the women,’ 
he said, ‘to limit the exercise of their curiosity to the 
inside of this room.’ 

‘What do you mean?’ 

The captain’s forefinger pointed significantly to the 
closed window-shutter. 


6 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


‘ Did you ever know a woman who could resist look- 
ing out of window?’ he asked. ‘Dark as it is, sooner 
or later these ladies of yours will feel tempted to open 
that shutter. Tell them I don’t want the light of the 
candle to betray my head-quarters to the German 
scouts. How is the weather ? Still raining ? ’ 

‘ Pouring.’ 

‘So much the better. The Germans won’t see us.’ 

With that consolatory remark he unlocked the door 
leading into the yard, and walked out. 

The surgeon lifted the canvas screen, and called into 
the kitchen: 

‘ Miss Merrick, have you time to take a little rest ? ’ 

‘ Plenty of time,’ answered a soft voice, with an under- 
lying melancholy in it, plainly distinguishable though 
it had only spoken three words. 

‘Come in then,’ continued the surgeon, ‘and bring 
the English lady with you. Here is a quiet room, all 
to yourselyes.’ 

He held back the canvas, and the two women ap- 
peared. 

The nurse led the way — tall, lithe, and graceful — j 

attired in her uniform dress of neat black stujEf, with \ 

plain linen collar and cuffs, and with the scarlet cross 
of the Geneva Convention embroidered on her left j 
shoulder. Pale and sad, her expression and her man- 
ner both eloquently suggestive of suppressed suffering 
and sorrow, there was an innate nobility in the carriage | 
of this woman’s head, an innate grandeur in the gaze 
of her large grey eyes, and in the lines of her finely- i 
proportioned face, which made her irresistibly striking 
and beautiful, seen under any circumstances and clad ( 

in any dress. Her companion, darker in complexion \ 

and smaller in stature, possessed attractions which were 


THE TWO WOMEN 


7 

quite marked enough to account for the surgeon’s polite 
anxiety to shelter her in the captain’s room. The com- 
mon consent of mankind would have declared her to be 
an unusually pretty woman. She wore the large grey 
cloak that covered her from head to foot with a grace 
that lent its own attractions to a plain and even a 
shabby article of dress. The languor in her move- 
ments, and the uncertainty of tone in her voice as she 
thanked the surgeon, suggested that she was suffering 
from fatigue. Her dark eyes searched the dimly- 
lighted room timidly, and she held fast by the nurse’s 
arm with the air of a woman whose nerves had been 
severely shaken by some recent alarm. 

‘You have one thing to remember, ladies,’ said the 
surgeon. ‘Beware of opening the shutter, for fear of 
the light being seen through the window. For the 
rest, we are free to make ourselves as comfortable as we 
can. Compose yourself, dear madam, and rely on the 
protection of a Frenchman who is devoted to you!’ 
He gallantly emphasised his last words by raising the 
hand of the English lady to his lips. At the moment 
when he kissed it, the canvas screen was again drawn 
aside. A person in the service of the ambulance ap- 
peared, announcing that a bandage had slipped, and 
that one of the wounded men was to all appearance 
bleeding to death. The surgeon, submitting to destiny 
with the worst possible grace, dropped the charming 
Englishwoman’s hand, and returned to his duties in 
the kitchen. The two ladies were left together in the 
room. 

‘ Will you take a chair, madam ? ’ asked the nurse. 

‘Don’t call me “madam,”’ returned the young lady 
cordially. ‘My name is Grace Roseberry. What is 
your name?’ 


8 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


The nurse hesitated. ‘ Not a pretty name like yours/ 
she said, and hesitated again. ‘ Call me “ Mercy Mer- 
rick,”^ she added, after a moment’s consideration. 

Had she given an assumed name? Was there some 
unhappy celebrity attached to her own name? Miss 
Roseberry did not wait to ask herself those questions. 
‘How can I thank you,’ she exclaimed gratefully, ‘for 
your sisterly kindness to a stranger like me?’ 

‘I have only done my duty,’ said Mercy Merrick, a 
little coldly. ‘Don’t speak of it.’ 

‘ I must speak of it. What a situation you found me 
in when the French soldiers had driven the Germans 
away! My travelling carriage stopped; the horses 
seized; I myself in a strange country at nightfall, 
robbed of my money and my luggage, and drenched to 
the skin by the pouring rain! I am indebted to you 
for shelter in this place — I am wearing your clothes — I 
should have died of the fright and the exposure but for 
you. What return can I make for such services as 
these ? ’ 

Mercy placed a chair for her guest near the captain’s 
table, and seated herself at some little distance, on an 
old chest in a corner of the room. ‘ May I ask you a 
question about yourself?’ she said, abruptly. 

Under ordinary circumstances, it was not in Grace’s 
character to receive the advances of a stranger unre- 
servedly. But she and the nurse had met, in a strange 
country, under those circumstances of common peril 
and common trial which especially predispose two 
women of the same nation to open their hearts to one 
another. She answered cordially, without a moment’s 
hesitation. 

‘A hundred questions,’ she cried, ‘if you like.’ She 
looked at the expiring fire, and at the dimly visible 


THE TWO WOMEN 


9 


figure of her companion seated in the obscurest corner 
of the room. ‘That wretched candle hardly gives 
any light,’ she said impatiently. ‘It won’t last much 
longer. Can’t we make the place more cheerful? 
Come out of your corner. Call for more wood and 
more lights.’ 

Mercy remained in her corner and shook her head. 
‘Candles and wood are scarce things here,’ she an- 
swered. ‘We must be patient, even if we are left in 
the dark. Tell me,’ she went on, raising her quiet 
voice a little, ‘ how came you to risk crossing the frontier 
in war time?’ 

Grace’s voice dropped when she answered the ques- 
tion. Grace’s momentary gaiety of manner suddenly 
left her. 

‘I had urgent reasons,’ she said, ‘for returning to 
England.’ 

‘Alone?’ rejoined the other. ‘Without anyone to 
protect you?’ 

Grace’s head sank on her bosom. ‘I have left my 
only protector — my father — in the English burial- 
ground at Rome,’ she answered simply. ‘My mother 
died, years since, in Canada.’ 

The shadowy figure of the nurse suddenly changed 
its position on the chest. She had started as the last 
word passed Miss Roseberry’s lips. 

‘ Do you know Canada ? ’ asked Grace. 

‘Well,’ was the brief answer — reluctantly given, short 
as it was. 

‘Were you ever near Port Logan?’ 

‘ I once lived within a few miles of Port Logan.’ 

‘When?’ 

‘Some time since.’ With those words Mercy Mer- 
rick shrank back into her corner and changed the sub- 


lo THE NEW MAGDALEN 

ject. ‘Your relatives in England must be very anxious 
about you,’ she said. 

Grace sighed. ‘I have no relatives in England. 
You can hardly imagine a person more friendless than 
I am. We went away from Canada, when my father’s 
health failed, to try the climate of Italy, by the doctor’s 
advice. His death has left me not only friendless, but 
poor.’ She paused, and took a leather letter-case from 
the pocket of the large grey cloak which the nurse had 
lent to her. ‘ My prospects in life,’ she resumed, ‘ are 
all contained in this little case. Here is the one treasure 
I contrived to conceal when I was robbed of my other 
things.’ 

Mercy could just see the letter-case as Grace held it 
up in the deepening obscurity of the room. ‘ Have you 
got money in it ? ’ she asked. 

‘No; only a few family papers, and a letter from my 
father, introducing me to an elderly lady in England — 
a connection of his by marriage, whom I have never 
seen. The lady has consented to receive me as her 
companion and reader. If I don’t return to England 
soon, some other person may get the place.’ 

‘Have you no other resource?’ 

‘None. My education has been neglected — ^we led 
a wild life in the far West. I am quite unfit to go out 
as a governess. I am absolutely dependent on this 
stranger who receives me for my father’s sake.’ She 
put the letter-case back in the pocket of her cloak, 
and ended her little narrative as unaffectedly as she 
had begun it. ‘Mine is a sad story, is it not?’ she 
said. 

The voice of the nurse answered her suddenly and 
bitterly in these strange words: 

‘There are sadder stories than yours. There are 


THE TWO WOMEN 


II 


thousands of miserable women who would ask for no 
greater blessing than to change places with you.’ 

Grace started. 

‘ What can there possibly be to envy in such a lot as 
mine ? ’ 

‘Your unblemished character, and your prospect of 
being established honourably in a respectable house.’ 

Grace turned in her chair, and looked wonderingly 
into the dim corner of the room. 

‘ How strangely you say that ! ’ she exclaimed. There 
was no answer; the shadowy figure on the chest never 
moved. Grace rose impulsively, and drawing her chair 
after her, approached the nurse. ‘Is there some ro- 
mance in your life?’ she asked. ‘Why have you sacri- 
ficed yourself to the terrible duties which I find you 
performing here? You interest me indescribably. 
Give me your hand.’ 

Mercy shrank back, and refused the offered hand. 

‘Are we not friends?’ Grace asked in astonishment. 

‘ We never can be friends.’ 

‘Why not?’ 

The nurse was dumb. She had shown a marked 
hesitation when she had mentioned her name. Re- 
membering this, Grace openly avowed the conclusion at 
which she had arrived. ‘Should I be guessing right,’ 
she asked, ‘if I guessed you to be some great lady in 
disguise ? ’ 

Mercy laughed to herself — low and bitterly. ‘I a 
great lady!’ she said contemptuously. ‘For heaven’s 
sake, let us talk of something else!’ 

Grace’s curiosity was thoroughly roused. She per- 
sisted. ‘Once more,’ she whispered persuasively, ‘let 
us be friends.’ She gently laid her arm as she spoke 
on Mercy’s shoulder. Mercy roughly shook it off. 


12 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


There was a rudeness in the action which would have 
offended the most patient woman living. Grace drew 
back indignantly. ‘Ah!’ she cried, ‘you are cruel.’ 

‘I am kind,’ answered the nurse, speaking more 
sternly than ever. 

‘Is it kind to keep me at a distance? I have told 
you my story.’ 

The nurse’s voice rose excitedly. ‘Don’t tempt me 
to speak out,’ she said; ‘you will regret it.’ 

Grace declined to accept the warning. ‘I have 
placed confidence in you,’ she went on. ‘It is un- 
generous to lay me under an obligation and then to 
shut me out of your confidence in return.’ 

‘You will have it ? ’ said Mercy Merrick. ‘You shall 
have it! Sit down again.’ Grace’s heart began to 
quicken its beat in expectation of the disclosure that 
was to come. She drew her chair closer to the chest 
on which the nurse was sitting. With a firm hand 
Mercy put the chair back to a distance from her. ‘ Not 
so near me!’ she said harshly. 

‘Why not?’ 

‘Not so near,’ repeated the sternly resolute voice. 
‘Wait till you have heard what I have to say.’ 

Grace obeyed without a word more. There was a 
momentary silence. A faint flash of light leapt up 
from the expiring candle, and showed Mercy crouching 
on the chest, with her elbows on her knees, and her face 
hidden in her hands. The next instant the room was 
buried in obscurity. As the darkness fell on the two 
women the nurse spoke. 



She might he Grace Roseherry if she dared 






MAGDALEN— IN MODERN TIMES 


13 


CHAPTER THE SECOND 

MAGDALEN — IN MODERN TIMES 

‘When your mother was alive were you ever out with 
her after nightfall in the streets of a great city?’ 

In those extraordinary terms Mercy Merrick opened 
the confidential interview which Grace Roseberry had 
forced on her. Grace answered simply, ‘ I don’t under- 
stand you.’ 

‘I will put it in another way,’ said the nurse. Its 
unnatural hardness and sternness of tone passed away 
from her voice, and its native gentleness and sadness 
returned, as she made that reply. ‘ You read the news- 
papers like the rest of the world,’ she went on; ‘have 
you ever read of your unhappy fellow-creatures (the 
starving outcasts of the population) whom Want has 
betrayed to Sin?’ 

Still wondering, Grace answered that she had read 
of such things in newspapers and in books. 

‘Have you heard — ^when those starving and sinning 
fellow-creatures happen to be women — of Refuges estab- 
lished to protect and reclaim them?’ 

The wonder in Grace’s mind passed away, and a 
vague suspicion of something painful to come took its 
place. ‘These are extraordinary questions,’ she said, 
nervously. ‘What do you mean?’ 

‘Answer me,’ the nurse insisted. ‘Have you heard 
of the Refuges? Have you heard of the Women?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Move your chair a little farther away from me.’ 
She paused. Her voice, without losing its steadiness, 
fell to its lowest tones. ‘/ was once one of those 
women,’ she said quietly. 


14 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


Grace sprang to her feet with a faint cry. She stood 
petrified — incapable of uttering a word. 

have been in a Refuge/ pursued the sweet sad 
voice of the other woman. have been in a Prison. 
Do you still wish to be my friend ? Do you still insist 
on sitting close by me and taking my hand?’ She 
waited for a reply, and no reply came. ‘You see you 
were wrong,’ she went on gently, ‘when you called me 
cruel — and I was right when I told you I was kind.’ 

At that appeal, Grace composed herself, and spoke. 
‘I don’t wish to offend you,’ she began coldly. 

Mercy Merrick stopped her there. 

‘You don’t offend me,’ she said, without the faintest 
note of displeasure in her tone. ‘I am accustomed to 
stand in the pillory of my own past life. I sometimes 
ask myself if it was all my fault. I sometimes wonder 
if Society had no duties towards me when I was a child 
selling matches in the street — ^when I was a hard- 
working girl, fainting at my needle for want of food.’ 
Her voice faltered a little for the first time as it pro- 
nounced those words; she waited a moment and re- 
covered herself. ‘ It’s too late to dwell on these things, 
now,’ she said resignedly. ‘ Society can subscribe to 
reclaim me — but Society can’t take me back. You see 
me here in a place of trust — patiently, humbly, doing 
all the good I can. It doesn’t matter! Here or else- 
where, what I am can never alter what I was. For 
three years past all that a sincerely penitent woman 
can do I have done. It doesn’t matter. Once let my 
past story be known, and the shadow of it covers me; 
the kindest people shrink.’ 

She waited again. Would a word of sympathy come 
to comfort her from the other woman’s lips? No!’ 
Miss Roseberry was shocked; Miss Roseberry was con- 


MAGDALEN— IN MODERN TIMES 15 

fused. ‘I am very sorry for you/ was all that Miss 
Roseberry could say. 

‘ Everybody is sorry for me/ answered the nurse, as 
patiently as ever; ‘everybody is kind to me. But the 
lost place is not to be regained. I can’t get back; I 
can’t get back’; she cried, with a passionate outburst 
of despair — checked instantly, the moment it had es- 
caped her. ‘ Shall I tell you what my experience has 
been.?’ she resumed. ‘Will you hear the story of 
Magdalen — in modern times?’ 

Grace drew back a step; Mercy instantly understood 
her. 

‘ I am going to tell you nothing that you need shrink 
from hearing,’ she said. ‘ A lady in your position would 
not understand the trials and the struggles that I have 
passed through. My story shall begin at the Refuge. 
The matron sent me out to service with the character 
that I had honestly earnecj — the character of a reclaimed 
woman. I justified the confidence placed in me; I 
was a faithful servant. One day, my mistress sent for 
me — a kind mistress, if ever there was one yet. “ Mercy, 
I am sorry for you; it has come out that I took you 
from a Refuge; I shall lose every servant in the house; 
you must go.” I went back to the matron — another 
kind woman. She received me like a mother. “We 
will try again, Mercy; don’t be cast down.” I told you 
I had been in Canada?’ 

Grace began to feel interested in spite of herself. 
She answered with something like warmth in her tone. 
She returned to her chair — placed at its safe and sig- 
nificant distance from the chest. 

The nurse went on. 

‘My next place was in Canada, with an officer’s 
wife: gentlefolks who had emigrated. More kindness; 


i6 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


and, this time, a pleasant peaceful life for me. I said 
to myself, “Is the lost place regained? Have I got 
back?’’ My mistress died. New people came into 
our neighbourhood. There was a young lady among 
them — my master began to think of another wife. I 
have the misfortune (in my situation) to be what is 
called a handsome woman; I rouse the curiosity of 
strangers. The new people asked questions about me; 
my master’s answers did not satisfy them. In a word, 
they found me out. The old story again! “Mercy, I 
am very sorry; scandal is busy with you and with me; 
we are innocent, but there is no help for it — we must 
part.” I left the place; having gained one advantage 
during my stay in Canada, which I find of use to me 
here.’ 

‘What is it?’ 

‘ Our nearest neighbours were French Canadians. I 
had daily practice in speaking the French language.’ 

‘Did you return to London?’ 

‘Where else could I go, without a character?’ said 
Mercy, sadly. ‘I went back again to the matron. 
Sickness had broken out in the Refuge; I made myself 
useful as a nurse. One of the doctors was struck with 
me — “fell in love” with me, as the phrase is. He 
would have married me. The nurse, as an honest 
woman, was bound to tell him the truth. He never 
appeared again. The old story! I began to be weary 
of saying to myself, “ I can’t get back ! I can’t get back ! ’ ’ 
Despair got hold of me, the despair that hardens the 
heart. I might have committed, suicide; I might even 
have drifted back into my old life — but for one man.’ 

At those last words, her voice — quiet and even 
through the earlier parts of her sad story — began to 
falter once more. She stopped; following silently the 


MAGDALEN— IN MODERN TIMES 17 

memories and associations roused in her by what she 
had just said. Had she forgotten the presence of an- 
other person in the room? Grace’s curiosity left Grace 
no resource but to say a word on her side. 

‘Who was the man?’ she asked. ‘How did he be- 
friend you?’ 

‘Befriend me? He doesn’t even know that such a 
person as I am is in existence.’ 

That strange answer, naturally enough, only strength- 
ened the anxiety of Grace to hear more. ‘You said 
just now ’ she began. 

‘I said just now that he saved me. He did save me; 
you shall hear how. One Sunday our regular clergy- 
man at the Refuge was not able to officiate. His place 
was taken by a stranger, quite a young man. The 
matron told us the stranger’s name was Julian Gray. 
I sat in the back row of seats, under the shadow of the 
gallery, where I could see him without his seeing me. 
His text was from the words, “Joy shall be in Heaven 
over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety 
and nine just persons which need no repentance.” 
What happier women might have thought of his sermon 
I cannot say; there was not a dry eye among us at the 
Refuge. As for me, he touched my heart as no man 
has touched it before or since. The hard despair 
melted in me at the sound of his voice; the weary round 
of my life showed its nobler side again while he spoke. 
From that time I have accepted my hard lot, I have 
been a patient woman. I might have been something 
more, I might have been a happy woman, if I could 
have prevailed on myself to speak to Julian Gray.’ 

‘What hindered you from speaking to him?’ 

‘I was afraid.’ 

‘Afraid of what?’ 


i8 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


‘Afraid of making my hard life harder still.’ 

A woman who could have sympathised with her 
would perhaps have guessed what those words meant. 
Grace was simply embarrassed by her; and Grace 
failed to guess. 

‘I don’t understand you/ she said. 

There was no alternative for Mercy but to own the 
truth in plain words. She sighed, and said the words. 
‘I was afraid I might interest him in my sorrows, and 
might set my heart on him in return.’ 

The utter absence of any fellow-feeling with her on 
Grace’s side expressed itself unconsciously in the plain- 
est terms. 

‘You!’ she exclaimed, in a tone of blank astonish- 
ment. 

The nurse rose slowly to her feet. Grace’s expres- 
sion of surprise told her plainly — almost brutally — that 
her confession had gone far enough. 

‘I astonish you,’ she said. ‘Ah, my young lady, you 
don’t know what rough usage a woman’s heart can 
bear, and still beat truly! Before I saw Julian Gray I 
■only knew men as objects of horror to me. Let us drop 
the subject. The preacher at the Refuge is nothing but 
a remembrance now — the one welcome remembrance 
of my life! I have nothing more to tell you. You in- 
sisted on hearing my story — you have heard it.’ 

‘ I have not heard how you found employment here,’ 
said Grace; continuing the conversation with uneasy 
politeness, as she best might. 

Mercy crossed the room, and slowly raked together 
the last living embers of the fire. 

‘The matron has friends in France,’ she answered, 
‘who are connected with the military hospitals. It 
was not difficult to get me the place, under those dr- 


MAGDALEN— IN MODERN TIMES 19 

cumstances. Society can find a use for me here. My 
hand is as light, my words of comfort are as welcome, 
among those suffering wretches’ (she pointed to the 
room in which the wounded men were lying) ‘as if I 
was the most reputable woman breathing. And if a 
stray shot comes my way before the war is over — well! 
Society will be rid of me on easy terms.’ 

She stood looking thoughtfully into the wreck of the 
fire — as if she saw in it the wreck of her own life. Com- 
mon humanity made it an act of necessity to say some- 
thing to her. Grace considered — advanced a step 
towards her— stopped — and took refuge in the most 
trivial of all the commonplace phrases which one human 
being can address to another. 

‘If there is anything I can do for you ,’ she began. 

The sentence, halting there, was never finished. Miss 
Roseberry was just merciful enough towards the lost 
woman who had rescued and sheltered her to feel that 
it was needless to say more. 

The nurse lifted her noble head, and advanced 
slowly towards the canvas screen to return to her duties. 
‘Miss Roseberry might have taken my hand!’ she 
thought to herself, bitterly. No! Miss Roseberry 
stood there at a distance, at a loss what to say next. 
‘ What can you do for me ? ’ Mercy asked, stung by the 
cold courtesy of her companion into a momentary out- 
break of contempt. ‘Can you change my identity? 
Can you give me the name and the place of an innocent 
woman? If I only had your chance! If I only had 
your reputation and your prospects!’ She laid one 
hand over her bosom, and controlled herself. ‘Stay 
here,’ she resumed, ‘while I go back to my work. I 
will see that your clothes are dried. You shall wear 
my clothes as short a time as possible.’ 


20 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


With those melancholy words — touchingly, not bit- 
terly spoken — she moved to pass into the kitchen. She 
had just reached the canvas screen, when Grace stopped 
her by a question. 

Ts the weather changing?’ Grace asked. T don’t 
hear the rain against the window.’ 

Before Mercy could check her, she had crossed the 
room, and had unfastened the window shutter. 

‘ Close the shutter ! ’ cried Mercy. ‘You were warned 
not to open it when we came into the room.’ 

Grace persisted in looking out. 

The moon was rising dimly in the watery sky; the 
rain had ceased; the friendly darkness which had 
hidden the French position from the German scouts 
was lessening every moment. In a few hours more (if 
nothing happened) Miss Roseberry might resume her 
journey. In a few hours more the morning would 
dawn. 

Hurriedly retracing her steps, Mercy closed the 
shutter with her own hands. Before she could fasten 
it, the report of a rifle-shot reached the cottage from 
one of the distant posts. It was followed almost in- 
stantly by a second report, nearer and louder than the 
first. Mercy paused, and listened intently for the next 
sound. 


CHAPTER THE THIRD 

THE GERMAN SHELL 

A third rifle-shot rang through the night air, close to 
the cottage. Grace started and drew back from the 
window in alarm. 

‘ What does that firing mean ? ’ she asked. 


THE GERMAN SHELL 


21 


‘ Signals from the outposts,’ the nurse quietly replied. 

‘Is there any danger? Have the Germans come 
back ? ’ 

Surgeon Surville answered the question. He lifted 
the canvas screen, and looked into the room as Miss 
Roseberry spoke. 

‘The Germans are advancing on us,’ he said. ‘Their 
vanguard is in sight.’ 

Grace sank on the chair near her, trembling from 
head to foot. Mercy advanced to the surgeon, and put 
the decisive question to him: 

‘ Do we defend the position ? ’ she enquired. 

Surgeon Surville ominously shook his head. 

‘Impossible! We are outnumbered as usual — ten to 
one.’ 

The shrill roll of the French drums was heard out- 
side. 

‘There is the retreat sounded!’ said the surgeon. 
‘ The captain is not a man to think twice about what he 
does. We are left to take care of ourselves. In five 
minutes we must be out of this place.’ 

A volley of rifle-shots rang out as he spoke. The 
German vanguard was attacking the French at the out- 
posts. Grace caught the surgeon entreatingly by the 
arm. ‘Take me with you,’ she cried. ‘Oh, sir, I have 
suffered from the Germans already! Don’t forsake me, 
if they come back!’ The surgeon was equal to the 
occasion; he placed the hand of the pretty English- 
woman on his breast. ‘Fear nothing, madam,’ he said, 
looking as if he could have annihilated the whole Ger- 
man force with his own invincible arm. ‘A French- 
man’s heart beats under your hand. A Frenchman’s 
devotion protects you.’ Grace’s head sank on his 
shoulder. Monsieur Surville felt that he had asserted 


22 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


himself; he looked round invitingly at Mercy. She, 
too, was an attractive woman. The Frenchman had 
another shoulder at her service. Unhappily, the room 
was dark — the look was lost on Mercy. She was think- 
ing of the helpless men in the inner chamber, and she 
quietly recalled the surgeon to a sense of his professional 
duties. 

‘What is to become of the sick and wounded?^ she 
asked. 

Monsieur Surville shrugged one shoulder — the shoul- 
der that was free. 

‘The strongest among them we can take away with 
us,’ he said. ‘The others must be left here. Fear 
nothing for yourself, dear lady. There will be a place 
for you in the baggage-waggon.’ 

‘And for me, too?’ Grace pleaded eagerly. 

The surgeon’s invincible arm stole round the young 
lady’s waist, and answered mutely with a squeeze. 

‘ Take her with you,’ said Mercy. ‘ My place is with 
the men whom you leave behind.’ 

Grace listened in amazement. ‘Think what you 
risk,’ she said, ‘if you stop here.’ 

Mercy pointed to her left shoulder. 

‘Don’t alarm yourself on my account,’ she answered, 
‘the red cross will protect me.’ 

Another roll of the drum warned the susceptible, sur- 
geon to take his place as director-general of the ambu- 
lance without any further delay. He conducted Grace 
to a chair and placed both her hands on his heart this 
time, to reconcile her to the misfortune of his absence. 
‘Wait here till I return for you,’ he whispered. ‘Fear 
nothing, my charming friend. Say to yourself, “Sur- 
ville is the soul of honour ! Surville is devoted to me ! ” ’ 
He struck his breast; he again forgot the obscurity in 


THE GERMAN SHELL 


23 


the room, and cast one look of unutterable homage at 
his charming friend. ‘A hientotV he cried, and kissed 
his hand and disappeared. 

As the canvas screen fell over him, the sharp report 
of the rifle-firing was suddenly and grandly dominated 
by the roar of cannon. The instant after, a shell ex- 
ploded in the garden outside, within a few yards of the 
window. 

Grace sank on her knees with a shriek of terror. 
Mercy — without losing her self-possession — advanced to 
the window, and looked out. 

‘The moon has risen,’ she said. ‘The Germans are 
shelling the village.’ 

Grace rose, and ran to her for protection. 

‘Take me away!’ she cried. ‘We shall be killed if 
we stay here.’ She stopped, looking in astonishment 
at the tall black figure of the nurse, standing immovably 
by the window. ‘ Are you made of iron ? ’ she exclaimed. 
Will nothing frighten you?’ 

Mercy smiled sadly. ‘Why should I be afraid of 
losing my life?’ she answered. ‘I have nothing worth 
living for.’ 

The roar of the cannon shook the cottage for the 
second time. A second shell exploded in the court- 
yard, on the opposite side of the building. 

Bewildered by the noise, panic-stricken as the danger 
from the shells threatened the cottage more and more 
nearly, Grace threw her arms round the nurse, and 
clung, in the abject familiarity of terror, to the woman 
whose hand she had shrunk from touching, not five- 
minutes since. ‘ Where is it safest ? ’ she cried. ‘ Where 
can I hide myself?’ 

‘ How can I tell where the next shell will fall ? ’ Mercy 
answered quietly. 


24 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


The steady composure of the one woman seemed to 
madden the other. Releasing the nurse, Grace looked 
wildly round for a way of escape from the cottage. 
Making first for the kitchen she was driven back by the 
clamour and confusion attending the removal of those 
among the wounded who were strong enough to be 
placed in the waggon. A second look round showed 
her the door leading into the yard. She rushed to it, 
with a cry of relief. She had just laid her hand on the 
lock when the third report of cannon burst over the 
place. 

Starting back a step, Grace lifted her hands mechani- 
cally to her ears. At the same moment, the third shell 
burst through the roof of the cottage, and exploded in 
the room, just inside the door. Mercy sprang forward, 
unhurt, from her place at the window. The burning 
fragments of the shell were already firing the dry wooden 
floor, and, in the midst of them, dimly seen through the 
smoke, lay the insensible body of her companion in the 
room. Even at that dreadful moment the nurse’s 
presence of mind did not fail her. Hurrying back to 
the place that she had just left, near which she had 
already noticed the miller’s empty sacks lying in a heap, 
she seized two of them, and throwing them on the 
smouldering floor, trampled out the fire. That done, 
she knelt by the senseless woman, and lifted her 
head. 

Was she wounded ? or dead ? 

Mercy raised one helpless hand, and laid her fingers 
on the wrist. While she was still vainly trying to feel 
for the beating of the pulse, Surgeon Surville (alarmed 
for the ladies) hurried in to enquire if any harm had 
been done. 

Mercy called to him to approach. ‘I am afraid the 


THE GERMAN SHELL 


25 

shell has struck her,’ she said, yielding her place to him. 
‘See if she is mortally wounded.’ 

The surgeon’s anxiety for his charming patient ex- 
pressed itself briefly in an oath, with a prodigious 
emphasis laid on one of the letters in it — the letter R. 
‘Take off her cloak,’ he cried, raising his hand to her 
neck. ‘Poor angel! She has turned in falling; the 
string is twisted round her throat.’ 

Mercy removed the cloak. It dropped on the floor 
as the surgeon lifted Grace in his arms. ‘ Get a candle,’ 
he said, impatiently; ‘they will give you one in the 
kitchen.’ He tried to feel the pulse : his hand trembled, 
the noise and confusion in the kitchen bewildered him. 
‘Just heaven!’ he exclaimed. ‘My emotions over- 
power me!’ Mercy approached him with the candle. 
The light disclosed the frightful injury which a frag- 
ment of the shell had inflicted on the Englishwoman’s 
head. Surgeon Surville’s manner altered on the in- 
stant. The expression of anxiety left his face; its pro- 
fessional composure covered it suddenly like a mask. 
What was the object of his admiration now ? An inert 
burden in his arms — nothing more. 

The change in his face was not lost on Mercy. Her 
large grey eyes watched him attentively. 

‘ Mortally wounded ? ’ she asked. 

‘ Don’t trouble yourself to hold the light any longer,’ 
was the cool reply. ‘ It’s all over— I can do nothing for 
her.’ 

‘Dead?’ 

Surgeon Surville nodded, and shook his fist in the 
direction of the outposts. ‘Accursed Germans,’ he 
cried, and looked down at the dead face on his arm, 
and shrugged his shoulders resignedly. ‘The fortune 
of war!’ he said, as he lifted the body and placed it on 


26 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


the bed in one corner of the room. ‘Next time, nurse, 
it may be you or me. Who knows? Bah! the prob- 
lem of human destiny disgusts me.’ He turned from 
the bed, and illustrated his disgust by spitting on the 
fragments of the exploded shell. ‘We must leave her 
there,’ he resumed. ‘ She was once a charming person 
— she is nothing now. Come away. Miss Mercy, be- 
fore it is too late.’ 

He offered his arm to the nurse. The creaking of 
the baggage-waggon, starting on its journey, was heard 
outside, and the shrill roll of the drums was renewed in 
the distance. The retreat had begun. 

Mercy drew aside the canvas, and saw the badly- 
wounded men left helpless at the mercy of the enemy, 
on their straw beds. She refused the offer of Surgeon 
Surville’s arm. 

‘I have already told you that I shall stay here,’ she 
answered. 

Monsieur Surville lifted his hands in polite remon- 
strance. Mercy held back the curtains, and pointed to 
the cottage door. 

‘ Go,’ she said. ‘ My mind is made up.’ 

Even at that final moment the Frenchman asserted 
himself. He made his exit with unimpaired grace and 
dignity. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘you are sublime!’ With 
that parting compliment the man of gallantry — true to 
the last to his admiration of the sex — bowed, with his 
hand on his heart, and left the cottage. 

Mercy dropped the canvas over the doorway. She 
was alone with the dead woman. 

The last tramp of footsteps, the last rumbling of the 
waggon-wheels died away in the distance. No renewal 
of firing from the position occupied by the enemy dis- 
turbed the silence that followed. The Germans knew 


THE GERMAN SHELL 


27 

that the French were in retreat. A few minutes more 
and they would take possession of the abandoned vil- 
lage : the tumult of their approach would become audi- 
ble at the cottage. In the meantime the stillness was 
terrible. Even the wounded wretches who were left in 
the kitchen waited their fate in silence. 

Alone in the room, Mercy’s first look was directed 
to the bed. 

The two women had met in the confusion of the first 
skirmish at the close of twilight. Separated, on their 
arrival at the cottage, by the duties required of the 
nurse, they had only met again in the captain’s room. 
The acquaintance between them had been a short one; 
and it had given no promise of ripening into friendship. 
But the fatal accident had roused Mercy’s interest in 
the stranger. She took the candle, and approached the 
corpse of the woman who had been literally killed at 
her side. 

She stood by the bed, looking down in the silence of 
the night at the stillness of the dead face. 

It was a striking face — once seen (in life or in death) 
not to be forgotten afterwards. The forehead was un- 
usually low and broad; the eyes unusually far apart; 
the mouth and chin remarkably small. With tender 
hands Mercy smoothed the dishevelled hair, and ar- 
ranged the crumpled dress. ‘Not five minutes since,’ 
she thought to herself, ‘I was longing to change places 
with you!^ She turned from the bed with a sigh. ‘I 
wish I could change places now!’ 

The silence began to oppress her. She walked 
slowly to the other end of the room. 

The cloak on the floor — her own cloak, which she 
had lent to Miss Roseberry — attracted her attention as 
she passed it. She picked it up and brushed the dust 


28 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


from it, and laid it across a chair. This done, she put 
the light back on the table, and, going to the window, 
listened for the first sounds of the German advance. 
The faint passage of the wind through some trees near 
at hand was the only sound that caught her ears. She 
turned from the window, and seated herself at the table, 
thinking. Was there any duty still left undone that 
Christian charity owed to the dead? Was there any 
further service that pressed for performance in the in- 
terval before the Germans appeared? 

Mercy recalled the conversation that had passed be- 
tween her ill-fated companion and herself. Miss Rose- 
berry had spoken of her object in returning to England. 
She had mentioned a lady— a connection by marriage, 
to whom she was personally a stranger— who was wait- 
ing to receive her. Some one capable of stating how 
the poor creature had met with her death ought to 
write to her only friend. Who was to do it? There 
was nobody to do it but the one witness of the catas- 
trophe now left in the cottage— Mercy herself. 

She lifted the cloak from the chair on which she had 
placed it, and took from the pocket the leather letter- 
case which Grace had shown to her. The only way of 
discovering the address to write to in England was to 
open the case and examine the papers inside. Mercy 
opened the case— and stopped, feeling a strange reluc- 
tance to carry the investigation any further. 

A moment’s consideration satisfied her that her 
scruples were misplaced. If she respected the case as 
inviolable, the Germans would certainly not hesitate to 
examine it, and the Germans would hardly trouble 
themselves to write to England. Which were the fittest 
eyes to inspect the papers of the deceased lady— the 
eyes of men and foreigners, or the eyes of her own 


THE TEMPTATION 


29 

countrywoman? Mercy’s hesitation left her. She 
emptied the contents of the case on the table. 

That trifling action decided the whole future course 
of her life. 


CHAPTER THE FOURTH 

THE TEMPTATION 

Some letters, tied together with a ribbon, attracted 
Mercy’s attention first. The ink in which the ad- 
dresses were written had faded with age. The letters, 
directed alternately to Colonel Roseberry and to the 
Honourable Mrs. Roseberry, contained a correspond- 
ence between the husband and wife at a time when the 
Colonel’s military duties had obliged him to be absent 
from home. Mercy tied the letters up again, and passed 
on to the papers that lay next in order under her hand. 

These consisted of a few leaves pinned together, and 
headed (in a woman’s handwriting), ‘My Journal at 
Rome.’ A brief examination showed that the journal 
had been written by Miss Roseberry, and that it was 
mainly devoted to a record of the last days of her father’s 
life. 

After replacing the journal and the correspondence 
in the case, the one paper left on the table was a letter. 
The envelope — which was unclosed — ^bore this address: 
‘Lady Janet Roy, Mabel thorpe House, Kensington, 
London.’ Mercy took the enclosure from the open 
envelope. The first lines she read informed her that 
she had found the Colonel’s letter of introduction, pre- 
senting his daughter to her protectress on her arrival in 
England. 

Mercy read the letter through. It was described by 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


30 

the writer as the last effort of a dying man. Colonel 
Roseberry wrote affectionately of his daughter’s merits, 
and regretfully of her neglected education — ascribing 
the latter to the pecuniary losses which had forced him 
to emigrate to Canada in the character of a poor man. 
Fervent expressions of gratitude followed, addressed to 
Lady Janet. ‘I owe it to you,’ the letter concluded, 
‘ that I am dying with my mind at ease about the future 
of my darling girl. To your generous protection I 
commit the one treasure I have left to me on earth. 
Through your long lifetime you have nobly used your 
high rank and your great fortune as a means of doing 
good. I believe it will not be counted among the least 
of your virtues hereafter that you comforted the last 
hours of an old soldier by opening your heart and your 
home to his friendless child.’ 

So the letter ended. Mercy laid it down with a heavy 
heart. What a chance the poor girl had lost! A 
woman of rank and fortune waiting to receive her— a 
woman so merciful and so generous that the father’s 
mind had been easy about the daughter on his death- 
bed— and there the daughter lay, beyond the reach of 
Lady Janet’s kindness, beyond the need of Lady Janet’s 
, help 1 

The French captain’s writing materials were left on 
the table. Mercy turned the letter over so that she 
might write the news of Miss Roseberry’s death on the 
blank page at the end. She was still considering what 
expressions she should use, when the sound of complain- 
ing voices from the next room caught her ear. The 
wounded men left behind were moaning for help— the 
deserted soliders were losing their fortitude at last. 

She entered the kitchen. A cry of delight welcomed 
her appearance — the mere sight of her composed the 


THE TEMPTATION 


31 


men. From one straw bed to another she passed, with 
comforting words that gave them hope, with skilled and 
tender hands that soothed their pain. They kissed the 
hem of her black dress; they called her their guardian 
angel, as the beautiful creature moved among them, 
and bent over their hard pillows her gentle compassion- 
ate face. ‘ I will be with you when the Germans come,’ 
she said, as she left them to return to her unwritten 
letter. ‘Courage, my poor fellows! You are not de- 
serted by your nurse.’ 

‘Courage, madam!’ the men replied, ‘and God bless 
you!’ 

If the firing had been resumed at that moment — if a 
shell had struck her dead in the act of succouring the 
afflicted — what Christian judgment would have hesi- 
tated to declare that there was a place for this woman 
in heaven? But, if the war ended and left her still 
living, where was the place for her on earth? Where 
were her prospects ? Where was her home ? 

She returned to the letter. Instead, however, of 
seating herself to write, she stood by the table, absently 
looking down at the morsel of paper. 

A strange fancy had sprung to life in her mind on re- 
entering the room; she herself smiled faintly at the 
extravagance of it. What if she were to ask Lady 
Janet Roy to let her supply Miss Roseberry’s place? 
She had met with Miss Roseberry under critical cir- 
cumstances: and she had done for her all that one 
woman could do to help another. There was in this 
circumstance some little claim to notice, perhaps, if 
Lady Janet had no other companion and reader in 
view. Suppose she ventured to plead her own cause — 
what would the noble and merciful lady do ? She would 
write back and say, ‘Send me references to your char- 


32 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


acter, and I will see what can be done.’ Her character! 
Her references 1 Mercy laughed bitterly, and sat down 
to write in the fewest words all that was needed from 
her — a plain statement of the facts. 

No! Not a line could she put on the paper. That 
fancy of hers was not to be dismissed at will. Her 
mind was perversely busy now with an imaginary pict- 
ure of the beauty of Mablethorpe House and the com- 
fort and elegance of the life that was led there. Once 
more she thought of the chance which Miss Roseberry 
had lost. Unhappy creature 1 what a home would have 
been open to her if the shell had only fallen on the side 
of the window instead of on the side of the yard. 

Mercy pushed the letter away from her, and walked 
impatiently to and fro in the room. 

The perversity in her thoughts was not to be mas- 
tered in that way. Her mind only abandoned one 
useless train of reflection to occupy itself with another. 
She was now looking by anticipation at her own future. 
What were her prospects (if she lived through it) when 
the war was over? The experience of the past deline- 
ated with pitiless fidelity the dreary scene. Go where 
she might, do what she might, it would end always in 
the same way. Curiosity and admiration excited by 
her beauty; enquiries made about her; the story of the 
past discovered; Society charitably sorry for her; So- 
ciety generously subscribing for her; and still, through 
all the years of her life, the same result in the end— the 
shadow of the old disgrace surrounding her as with a 
pestilence; isolating her among other women; brand- 
ing her, even when she had earned her pardon in the 
sight of God, with the mark of an indelible disgrace in 
the sight of man : there was the prospect 1 And she was 
only five-and-twenty last birthday; she was in the 


THE TEMPTATION 


33 

prime of her health and her strength; she might live, 
in the course of nature, fifty years more! 

She stopped again at the bedside; she looked again 
at the face of the corpse. 

To what end had the shell struck the woman who 
had some hope in her life, and spared the woman who 
had none ? The words she had herself spoken to Grace 
Roseberry came back to her as she thought of it. ‘ If 
I only had your chance! If I only had your reputation 
and your prospects ! ’ And there was the chance wasted ! 
there were the enviable prospects thrown away! It 
was almost maddening to contemplate that result, feel- 
ing her own position as she felt it. In the bitter mock- 
ery of despair, she bent over the lifeless figure, and 
spoke to it as if it had ears to hear her. ‘ Oh!’ she said, 
longingly, ‘if you could be Mercy Merrick, and if I 
could be Grace Roseberry, now!^ 

The instant the words passed her lips she started into 
an erect position. She stood by the bed, with her eyes 
staring wildly into empty space; with her brain in a 
flame; with her heart beating as if it would stifle her. 
If you could be Mercy Merrick and if I could be Grace 
Roseberry, now!’ In one breathless moment, the 
thought assumed a new development in her mind. In 
one breathless moment, the conviction struck her like 
an electric shock. She might he Grace Roseberry ij she 
dared! There was absolutely nothing to stop her from 
presenting herself to Lady Janet Roy under Grace’s 
name and in Grace’s place! 

What were the risks ? Where was the weak point in 
the scheme? 

Grace had said it herself in so many words — she and 
Lady Janet had never seen each other. Her friends 
were in Canada; her relations in England were dead. 


34 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


Mercy knew the place in which she had lived — the 
place called Port Logan — as well as she had known it 
herself. Mercy had only to read the manuscript journal 
to be able to answer any questions relating to the visit 
to Rome and to Colonel Roseberry’s death. She had 
no accomplished lady to personate: Grace had spoken 
herself — her father’s letter spoke also in the plainest 
terms — of her neglected education. Everything, liter- 
ally everything, was in the lost woman’s favour. The 
people with whom she had been connected in the ambu- 
lance had gone, to return no more. Her own clothes 
were on Miss Roseberry at that moment — marked with 
her own name. Miss Roseberry’ s clothes, marked with 
her name, were drying, at Mercy’s disposal, in the next 
room. The way of escape from the unendurable humil- 
iation of her present life lay open before her at last. 
What a prospect it was! A new identity, which she 
might own anywhere! a new name, which was beyond 
reproach! a new past life, into which all the world might 
search, and be welcome! Her colour rose, her eyes 
sparkled; she had never been so irresistibly beautiful 
as she looked at the moment when the new future dis- 
closed itself, radiant with new hope. 

She waited a minute, until she could think over her 
own daring project from another point of view. Where 
was the harm of it ? what did her conscience say ? 

As to Grace, in the first place. What injury was she 
doing to a woman who was dead? The question an- 
swered itself. No injury to the woman. No injury to 
her relations. Her relations were dead also. 

As to Lady Janet, in the second place. If she served 
her new mistress faithfully; if she filled her new sphere 
honourably; if she was diligent under instruction, and 
grateful for kindness— if, in one word, she was all that 


THE TEMPTATION 


35 

she might be and would be in the heavenly peace and 
security of that new life— what injury was she doing to 
Lady Janet? Once more, the question answered it- 
self. She might, and would, give Lady Janet cause to 
bless the day when she first entered the house. 

She snatched up Colonel Roseberry’s letter, and put 
it into the case with the other papers. The opportunity 
was before her; the chances were all in her favour; her 
conscience said nothing against trying the daring 
scheme. She decided, then and there— ‘I’ll do it!’ 

Something jarred on her finer sense, something 
offended her better nature, as she put the case into the 
pocket of her dress. She had decided, and yet she was 
not at ease; she was not quite sure of having fairly 
questioned her conscience yet. What if she laid the 
letter-case on the table again, and waited until her ex- 
citement had all cooled down, and then put the con- 
templated project soberly on its trial before her own 
sense of right and wrong? 

She thought once — and hesitated. Before she could 
think twice, the distant tramp of marching footsteps, 
and the distant clatter of horses’ hoofs were wafted to 
her on the night air. The Germans were entering the 
village! In a few minutes more they would appear in 
the cottage; they would summon her to give an account 
of herself. There was no time for waiting until she 
was composed again. Which should it be — the new 
life, as Grace Roseberry? or the old life, as Mercy 
Merrick ? 

She looked for the last time at the bed. Grace’s 
course was run; Grace’s future was at her disposal. 
Her resolute nature, forced to a choice on the instant, 
held by the daring alternative. She persisted in the 
determination to take Grace’s place. 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


36 

The tramping footsteps of the Germans came nearer 
and nearer. The voices of the officers were audible, 
giving the words of command. 

She seated herself at the table, waiting steadily for 
what was to come. 

The ineradicable instinct of the sex directed her eyes 
to her dress before the Germans appeared. Looking 
it over to see that it was in perfect order, her eyes fell 
upon the red cross on her left shoulder. In a moment 
it struck her that her nurse’s costume might involve 
her in a needless risk. It associated her with a public 
position : it might lead to enquiries at a later time, and 
those enquiries might betray her. 

She looked round. The grey cloak which she had 
lent to Grace attracted her attention. She took it up, 
and covered herself with it from head to foot. 

The cloak was just arranged round her, when she 
heard the outer door thrust open, and voices speaking 
in a strange tongue, and arms grounded in the room 
behind her. Should she wait to be discovered? or 
should she show herself of her own accord ? It was less 
trying to such a nature as hers to show herself than to 
wait. She advanced to enter the kitchen. The canvas 
curtain, as she stretched out her hand to it, was sud- 
denly drawn back from the other side, and three men 
confronted her in the open doorway. 


THE GERMAN SURGEON 


37 


CHAPTER THE FIFTH 

THE GERMAN SURGEON 

The youngest of the three strangers— judging by feat- 
ures, complexion, and manner — was apparently an 
Englishman. He wore a military cap and military 
boots, but was otherwise dressed as a civilian. Next 
to him stood an officer in Prussian uniform, and next 
to the officer was the third and the oldest of the party. 
He also was dressed in uniform, but his appearance 
was far from being suggestive of the appearance of a 
military man. He halted on one foot, he stooped at 
the shoulders, and instead of a sword at his side he 
carried a stick in his hand. After looking sharply 
through a large pair of tortoise-shell spectacles, first at 
Mercy, then at the bed, then all round the room, he 
turned with a cynical composure of manner to the 
Prussian officer, and broke silence in these words: 

‘A woman ill on the bed; another woman in attend- 
ance on her, and no one else in the room. Any neces- 
sity, major, for setting a guard here?’ 

‘No necessity,’ answered the major. He wheeled 
round on his heel and returned to the kitchen. The 
German surgeon advanced a little, led by his profes- 
sional instinct, in the direction of the bedside. The 
young Englishman, whose eyes had remained riveted in 
admiration on Mercy, drew the canvas screen over the 
doorway, and respectfully addressed her in the French 
language. 

‘May I ask if I am speaking to a French lady?’ he 
said. 

‘ I am an Englishwoman,’ Mercy replied. 

The surgeon heard the answer. Stopping short on 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


38 

his way to the bed, he pointed to the recumbent figure 
on it, and said to Mercy, in good English, spoken with 
a strong German accent — 

‘ Can I be of any use there ? ^ 

His manner was ironically courteous; his harsh voice 
was pitched in one sardonic monotony of tone. Mercy 
took an instantaneous dislike to this hobbling, ugly old 
man, staring at her rudely through his great tortoise- 
shell spectacles. 

‘You can be of no use, sir,’ she said, shortly. ‘The 
lady was killed when your troops shelled this cot- 
tage.’ 

The Englishman started, and looked compassionately 
towards the bed. The German refreshed himself with 
a pinch of snuff, and put another question : 

‘Has the body been examined by a medical man?’ 
he asked. Mercy ungraciously limited her reply to the 
one necessary word ‘Yes.’ 

The present surgeon was not a man to be daunted by 
a lady’s disapproval of him. He went on with his 
questions. 

‘Who has examined the body?’ he enquired next. 

Mercy answered, ‘The doctor attached to the French 
ambulance.’ 

The German grunted in contemptuous disapproval 
of ^11 French men and all French institutions. The 
Englishman seized his first opportuntiy of addressing 
himself to Mercy once more. 

‘Is the lady a countrywoman of ours?’ he asked 
gently. 

Mercy considered before she answered him. With 
the object in view she had, there might be serious rea- 
sons for speaking with extreme caution when she spoke 
of Grace. 


THE GERMAN SURGEON 


39 

‘I believe so,’ she said. ‘We met here by accident. 
I know nothing of her.’ 

‘Not even her name?’ enquired the German surgeon. 

Mercy’s resolution was hardly equal yet to giving her 
own name openly as the name of Grace. She took 
refuge in flat denial. 

‘Not even her name,’ she repeated obstinately. 

The old man stared at her more rudely than ever — 
considered with himself — and took the candle from the 
table. He hobbled back to the bed, and examined the 
figure laid on it in silence. The Englishman continued 
the conversation, no longer concealing the interest that 
he felt in the beautiful woman who stood before him. 

‘Pardon me,’ he said; ‘you are very young to be 
alone in war-time in such a place as this.’ 

The sudden outbreak of a disturbance in the kitchen 
relieved Mercy from any immediate necessity for an- 
swering* him. She heard the voices of the wounded 
men raised in feeble remonstrance, and the harsh com- 
mand of the foreign officers, bidding them be silent. 
The generous instincts of the woman instantly pre- 
vailed over every personal consideration imposed on 
her by the position which she had assumed. Reckless 
whether she betrayed herself or not as nurse in the 
French ambulance, she instantly drew aside the canvas 
to enter the kitchen. A German sentinel barred the 
way to her, and announced, in his own language, that 
no strangers were admitted. The Englishman, politely 
interposing, asked if she had any special object in 
wishing to enter the room. 

‘The poor Frenchmen!’ she said earnestly, her heart 
upbraiding her for having forgotten them. ‘The poor 
wounded Frenchmen!’ 

The German surgeon advanced from the bedside. 


40 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


and took the matter up before the Englishman could 
say a word more. 

‘You have nothing to do with the wounded French- 
men/ he croaked, in the harshest notes of his voice. 
‘The wounded Frenchmen are my business, and not 
yours. They are our prisoners, and they are being 
moved to our ambulance. I am Ignatius Wetzel, chief 
of the medical staff — and I tell you this. Hold your 
tongue.’ He turned to the sentinel, and added in 
German, ‘Draw the curtain again; and if the woman 
persists, put her back into this room with your own 
hand.’ 

Mercy attempted to remonstrate. The Englishman 
respectfully took her arm, and drew her out of the 
sentinel’s reach. 

‘It is useless to resist,’ he said. ‘The German disci- 
pline never gives way. There is not the least need to 
be uneasy about the Frenchmen. The ambulance, 
under Surgeon Wetzel, is admirably administered. I 
answer for it, the men will be well treated.’ He saw 
the tears in her eyes as he spoke; his admiration for 
her rose higher and higher. ‘ Kind as well as beauti- 
ful,’ he thought. ‘What a charming creature!’ 

‘Weill’ said Ignatius Wetzel, eyeing Mercy sternly 
through his spectacles. ‘Are you satisfied? And will 
you hold your tongue?’ 

She yielded: it was plainly useless to persist. But 
for the surgeon’s resistance, her devotion to the wounded 
men might have stopped her on the downward way 
that she was going. If she could only have been ab- 
sorbed again, mind and body, in her good work as a 
nurse, the temptation might even yet have found her 
strong enough to resist it. The fatal severity of the 
German discipline had snapped asunder the last tie 


THE GERMAN SURGEON 


41 


that bound her to her better self. Her face hardened 
as she walked away proudly from Surgeon Wetzel, and 
took a chair. 

The Englishman followed her, and reverted to the 
question of her present situation in the cottage. 

‘Don’t suppose that I want to alarm you,’ he said. 
‘There is, I repeat, no need to be anxious about the 
Frenchmen, but there is serious reason for anxiety on 
your own account. The action will be renewed round 
this village by daylight; you ought really to be in a 
place of safety. I am an officer in the English army — 
my name is Horace Holmcroft.’ I shall be delighted 
to be of use to you, and I can be of use to you if you 
will let me. May I ask if you are travelling?’ 

Mercy gathered the cloak which concealed her 
nurse’s dress more closely round her, and committed 
herself silently to her first overt act of deception. She 
bowed her head in the affirmative. 

‘ Are you on your way to England ? ’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘In that case, I can pass you through the German 
lines, and forward you at once on your journey.’ 

Mercy looked at him in unconcealed surprise. His 
strongly-felt interest in her was restrained within the 
strictest limits of good breeding: he was unmistakably 
a gentleman. Did he really mean what he had just 
said ? 

‘You can pass me through the German lines?’ she 
repeated. ‘You must possess extraordinary influence, 
sir, to be able to do that.’ 

Mr. Horace Holmcroft smiled. 

‘I possess the influence that no one can resist,’ he 
answered— ‘the influence of the Press. I am serving 
here as war-correspondent of one of our great English 


42 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


newspapers. If I ask him, the commanding officer will 
grant you a pass. He is close to this cottage. What 
do you say?’ 

She summoned her resolution — ^not without difficulty, 
even now — and took him at his word. 

‘I gratefully accept your offer, sir.’ 

He advanced a step towards the kitchen, and stopped. 

‘ It may be well to make the application as privately 
as possible,’ he said. ‘I shall be questioned if I pass 
through that room. Is there no other way out of the 
cottage ? ’ 

Mercy showed him the door leading into the yard. 
He bowed — and left her. 

She looked furtively towards the German surgeon. 
Ignatius Wetzel was again at the bed, bending over the 
body, and apparently absorbed in examining the wound 
which had been inflicted by the shell. Mercy’s in- 
stinctive aversion to the old man increased tenfold now 
that she was left alone with him. She withdrew un- 
easily to the window, and looked out at the moon- 
light. 

Had she committed herself to the fraud? Hardly, 
yet. She had committed herself to returning to England 
—nothing more. There was no necessity, thus far, 
which forced her to present herself at Mablethorpe 
House, in Grace’s place. There was still time^to re- 
consider her resolution — still time to write the account 
of the. accident, as she had proposed, and to send it 
with the letter-case to Lady Janet Roy. Suppose she 
finally decided on taking this course, what was to be- 
come of her when she found herself in England again ? 
There was no alternative open but to apply once more 
to her friend the Matron. There was nothing for her 
to do but to return to the Refuge! 


THE GERMAN SURGEON 


43 


The Refuge! The Matron! What past association 
with these two was now presenting itself uninvited, and 
taking the foremost place in her mind ? Of whom was 
she now thinking, in that strange place, and at that 
crisis in her life ? Of the man whose words had found 
their way to her heart, whose influence had strength- 
ened and comforted her, in the chapel of the Refuge. 
One of the finest passages in his sermon had been 
especially devoted by Julian Gray to warning the con- 
gregation whom he addressed against the degrading in- 
fluences of falsehood and deceit. The terms in which 
he had appealed to the miserable women round him — • 
terms of sympathy and encouragement never addressed 
to them before — came back to Mercy Merrick as if she 
had heard them an hour since. She turned deadly 
pale as they now pleaded with her once more. ‘Oh!’ 
she whispered to herself, as she thought of what she 
had purposed and planned; ‘what have I done? what 
have I done?’ 

She turned from the window with some vague idea 
in her mind of following Mr. Holmcroft and calling 
him back. As she faced the bed again, she also con- 
fronted Ignatius Wetzel. He was just stepping for- 
ward to speak to her, with a white handkerchief — the 
handkerchief which she had lent to Grace — held up in 
his hand. 

‘I have found this in her pocket,-’ he said. ‘Here is 
her name written on it. She must be a countrywoman 
of yours.’ He read the letters marked on the handker- 
chief with some difficulty. ‘Her name is — Mercy 
Merrick.’ 

His lips had said it— not hers! He had given 
Grace Roseberry the name. 

‘“Mercy Merrick” is an English name?’ pursued 


44 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


Ignatius Wetzel, with his eyes steadily fixed on her. 
‘Is it not so?’ 

The hold on her mind of the past association with 
Julian Gray began to relax. One present and pressing 
question now possessed itself of the foremost place in 
her thoughts. Should she correct the error into which 
the German had fallen ? The time had come— to speak, 
and assert her own identity; or to be silent, and commit 
herself to the fraud. 

Horace Holmcroft entered the room again, at the 
moment when Surgeon Wetzel’s staring eyes were still 
fastened on her, waiting for her reply. 

‘I have not overrated my interest,’ he said, pointing 
to a little slip of paper in his hand. ‘ Here is the pass. 
Have you got pen and ink? I must fill up the form.’ 

Mercy pointed to the writing materials on the table, 
Horace seated himself, and dipped the pen in the ink. 

‘Pray don’t think that I wish to intrude myself into 
your affairs,’ he said. ‘I am obliged to ask you one or 
two plain questions. What is your name?’ 

A sudden trembling seized her. She supported her- 
self against the foot of the bed. Her whole future 
existence depended on her answer. She was incapable 
of uttering a word. 

Ignatius Wetzel stood her friend once more. His 
croaking voice filled the empty gap of silence exactly 
at the right time. He doggedly held the handkerchief 
under her eyes. He obstinately repeated, ‘ Mercy Mer- 
rick is an English name. Is it not so ? ’ 

Horace Holmcroft looked up from the table. ‘ Mercy 
Merrick?’ he said. ‘Who is Mercy Merrick?’ 

Surgeon Wetzel pointed to the corpse on the bed. 

‘I have found the name on the handkerchief,’ he 
said. ‘This lady, it seems, had not curiosity enough 


THE GERMAN SURGEON 45 

to look for the name of her own countrywoman.’ He 
made that mocking allusion to Mercy with a tone which 
was almost a tone of suspicion, and a look which was 
almost a look of contempt. Her quick temper instantly 
resented the discourtesy of which she had been made 
the object. The irritation of the moment — so often do 
the most trifling motives determine the most serious 
human actions — decided her on the course that she 
should pursue. She turned her back scornfully on the 
rude old man, and left him in the delusion that he had 
discovered the dead woman’s name. 

Horace returned to the business of filling up the 
form. 

‘ Pardon me for pressing the question,’ he said. ‘ You 
know what German discipline is by this time. What 
is your name?’ 

She answered him recklessly, defiantly, without fairly 
realising what she was doing, until it was done. 

‘ Grace Roseberry,’ she said. 

The words were hardly out of her mouth before she 
would have given everything she possessed in the world 
to recall them. 

‘Miss?’ asked Horace, smiling. 

She could only answer him by bowing her head. 

He wrote, ‘Miss Grace Roseberry’ — reflected for a 
moment — and then added interrogatively, ‘Returning 
to her friends in England?’ Her friends in England! 
Mercy’s heart swelled : she silently replied by another 
sign. He wrote the words after the name, and shook 
the sand-box over the wet ink. ‘That will be enough,’ 
he said, rising and presenting the pass to Mercy: ‘I 
will see you through the lines myself, and arrange for 
your being sent on by the railway. Where is your 
luggage?’ 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


46 

Mercy pointed towards the front door of the building. 
‘In a shed outside the cottage/ she answered. ‘It is 
not much; I can do everything for myself if the sentinel 
will let me pass through the kitchen.’ 

Horace pointed to the paper in her hand. ‘You can 
go where you like now/ he said. ‘ Shall I wait for you 
here, or outside?’ 

Mercy glanced distrustfully at Ignatius Wetzel. He 
had resumed his endless examination of the body on 
the bed. If she left him alone with Mr. Holmcroft, 
there was no knowing what the hateful old man might 
not say of her. She answered, ‘Wait for me outside, 
if you please.’ 

The sentinel drew back with a military salute at the 
sight of the pass. All the French prisoners had been 
removed; there were not more than half-a-dozen Ger- 
mans in the kitchen, and the greater part of them were 
asleep. Mercy took Grace Roseberry’s clothes from 
the corner in which they had been left to dry, and made 
for the shed, a rough structure of wood, built out from 
the cottage wall. At the front door she encountered a 
second sentinel, and showed her pass for the second 
time. She spoke to this man, asking him if he under- 
stood French. He answered that he understood a little. 
Mercy gave him a piece of money and said, ‘ I am going 
to pack up my luggage in the shed. Be kind enough 
to see that nobody disturbs me.’ The sentinel saluted, 
in token that he understood. Mercy disappeared in 
the dark interior of the shed. 

Left alone with Surgeon Wetzel, Horace noticed the 
strange old man still bending intently over the English 
lady who had been killed by the shell. 

‘Anything remarkable,’ he asked, ‘in the manner of 
that poor creature’s death?’ 


THE GERMAN SURGEON 


47 

‘Nothing to put in a newspaper/ retorted the cynic, 
pursuing his investigations as attentively as ever. 

‘ Interesting to a doctor — -eh ? ’ said Horace. 

‘Yes. Interesting to a doctor,’ was the gruff reply. 

Horace good-humouredly accepted the hint implied 
in those words. He quitted the room by the door lead- 
ing into the yard, and waited for the charming English- 
woman as he had been instructed, outside the cottage. 

Left by himself, Ignatius Wetzel, after a first cautious 
look all round him, opened the upper part of Grace’s 
dress, and laid his left hand on her heart. Taking a 
little steel instrument from his waistcoat pocket with 
the other hand, he applied it carefully to the wound — 
raised a morsel of the broken and depressed bone of the 
skull, and waited for the result. ‘Aha!’ he cried, ad- 
dressing with a terrible gaiety the senseless creature 
under his hands. ‘The Frenchman says you are dead, 
my dear — does he ? The Frenchman is a Quack I The 
Frenchman is an Assl’ He lifted his head, and called 
into the kitchen. ‘Maxi’ A sleepy young German, 
covered with a dresser’s apron from his chin to his feet, 
drew the curtain and waited for his instructions. ‘ Bring 
me my black bag,’ said Ignatius Wetzel. Having given 
that order, he rubbed his hands cheerfully, and shook 
himself like a dog. ‘ Now I am quite happy,’ croaked 
the terrible old man, with his fierce eyes leering sidelong 
at the bed. ‘My dear dead Englishwoman, I would 
not have missed this meeting with you for all the money 
I have in the world. Ha! you infernal French Quack, 
you call it death, do you ? I call it suspended anima- 
tion from pressure on the brain!’ 

Max appeared with the black bag. 

Ignatius Wetzel selected two fearful instruments, 
bright and new, and hugged them to his bosom. ‘My 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


48 

little boys/ he said tenderly, as if they were two children; 
‘my blessed little boys, come to work!’ He turned to 
the assistant. ‘Do you remember the battle of Sol- 
ferino. Max — and the Austrian soldier I operated on for 
a wound on the head ? ’ 

The assistant’s sleepy eyes opened wide; he was evi- 
dently interested. ‘I remember,’ he said. ‘I held the 
candle.’ 

The master led the way to the bed. 

‘ I am not satisfied with the result of that operation at 
Solferino,’ he said; ‘I have wanted to try again ever 
since. It’s true that I saved the man’s life, but I failed 
to give him back his reason along with it. It might 
have been something wrong in the operation, or it might 
have been something wrong in the man. Whichever it 
was, he will live and die, mad. Now look here, my 
little Max, at this dear young lady on the bed. She 
gives me just what I wanted; here is the case at Sol- 
ferino, once more. You shall hold the candle again, 
my good boy; stand there, and look with all your eyes. 
I am going to try if I can save the life and the reason 
too, this time.’ 

He tucked up the cuffs of his coat, and began the 
operation. As his fearful instruments touched Grace’s 
head, the voice of the sentinel at the nearest outpost was 
heard, giving the word in German which permitted 
Mercy to take the first step on her journey to England : 

‘Pass the English lady!’ 

The operation proceeded. The voice of the sentinel 
at the next post was heard more faintly, in its turn : 

‘Pass the English lady!’ 

The operation ended. Ignatius Wetzel held up his 
hand for silence, and put his ear close to the patient’s 
mouth. 


THE GERMAN SURGEON 


49 


The first trembling breath of returning life fluttered 
over Grace Roseberry’s lips, and touched the old man’s 
wrinkled cheek. ‘Aha!’ he cried. ‘Good girl! you 
breathe — you live!’ As he spoke, the voice of the sen- 
tinel at the final limit of the German lines (barely audi- 
ble in the distance) gave the word for the last time : 

‘Pass the English lady!’ 

THE END or THE FIRST SCENE 





SECOND SCENE 

MABLETHORFE HOUSE 

PREAMBLE 
The place is England. 

The time is winter ^ in the year eighteen hundred and 
seventy. 

The persons are: Julian Gray^ Horace Holmcrojty 
Lady Janet Roy, Grace Roseherry and Mercy Merrick. 


1 


1 

I 


J 



CHAPTER THE SIXTH 

► LADY JANET’S COMPANION 

It is a glorious winter’s day. The sky is clear, the 
frost is hard, the ice bears for skating. 

The dining-room of the ancient mansion, called 
Mablethorpe House, situated in the London suburb of 
Kensington, is famous among artists and other persons, 
of taste for the carved wood-work, of Italian origin, 
which covers the walls on three sides. On the fourth 
side, the march of modern improvement has broken 
in, and has varied and brightened the scene by means 
of a conservatory, forming an entrance to the room, 
through a winter garden of rare plants and flowers. 
On your right hand, as you stand fronting the con-^ 
servatory, the monotony of the panelled wall is re- 
lieved by a quaintly-patterned door of old inlaid wood, 
leading into the library, and thence, across the great 
hall, to the other reception rooms of the house. A 
corresponding door on the left hand gives access to the 
billiard-room, to the smoking-room next to it, and to a 
smaller hall commanding one of the secondary entrances 
to the building. On the left side also is the ample fire- 
place, surmounted by its marble mantel-piece, carved 
in the profusely and confusedly ornate style of eighty 
years since. To the educated eye, the dining-room, 
with its modern furniture and conservatory, its ancient 
walls and doors, and its lofty mantel-piece (neither very 
old nor very new) presents a startling, almost a revolu- 
53 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


54 

tionary mixture of the decorative workmanship of 
widely-differing schools. To the ignorant eye, the one 
result produced is an impression of perfect luxury and 
comfort, united in the friendliest combination, and de- 
veloped on the largest scale. 

The clock has just struck two. The table is spread 
for luncheon. 

The persons seated at the table are three in number. 
First, Lady Janet Roy. Second, a young lady who is 
her reader and companion. Third, a guest staying in 
the house, who has already appeared in these pages 
under the name of Horace Holmcroft — attached to the 
German army as war-correspondent of an English news- 
paper. 

Lady Janet Roy needs but little introduction. Every- 
body with the slightest pretension to experience in 
London society knows Lady Janet Roy. 

Who has not heard of her old lace and her priceless 
rubies ? Who has not admired her commanding figure, 
her beautifully-dressed white hair, her wonderful black 
eyes, which still preserve their youthful brightness, 
after first opening on the world seventy years since? 
Who has not felt the charm of her easily-flowing talk, 
her inexhaustible spirits, her good-humoured gracious 
sociability of manner? Where is the modem hermit 
who is not familiarly acquainted, by hearsay at least, 
with the fantastic novelty and humour of her opinions; 
with her generous encouragement of rising merit of any 
sort, in all ranks, high or low; with her charities, which 
know no distinction between abroad and at home; with 
her large indulgence, which no ingratitude can dis- 
courage and no servility pervert ? Everybody has 
heard of the popular old lady — the childless widow of a 
long-forgotten lord. Everybody knows Lady Janet Roy. 


LADY JANET’S COMPANION 55 

But who knows the handsome young woman sitting 
on her right hand, playing with her luncheon instead of 
eating it? Nobody really knows her. 

She is prettily dressed in grey poplin, trimmed with 
grey velvet, and set off by a ribbon of deep red tied in 
a bow at the throat. She is nearly as tall as Lady Janet 
herself, and possesses a grace and beauty of figure not 
always seen in women who rise above the medium 
height. Judging by a certain innate grandeur in the 
carriage of her head, and in the expression of her large 
melancholy grey eyes, believers in blood and breeding 
will be apt to guess that this is another noble lady. Alas 
she is nothing but Lady Janet’s companion and reader. 
Her head, crowned with its lovely light brown hair, 
bends with a gentle respect when Lady Janet speaks. 
Her fine firm hand is easily and incessantly watchful to 
supply Lady Janet’s slightest wants. The old lady — 
affectionately familiar with her — speaks to her as she 
might speak to an adopted child. But the gratitude of 
the beautiful companion has always the same restraint 
in its acknowledgment of kindness; the smile of the 
beautiful companion has always the same underlying 
sadness when it responds to Lady Janet’s hearty laugh. 
Is there something wrong here, under the surface? Is 
she suffering in mind, or suffering in body? What is 
the matter with her? 

The matter with her is secret remorse. This delicate 
and beautiful creature pines under the slow torment of 
constant self-reproach. 

To the mistress of the house, and to all who inhabit 
it or enter it, she is known as Grace Roseberry, the 
orphan relative by marriage of Lady Janet Roy. To 
herself alone she is known as the outcast of the London 
streets; the inmate of the London Refuge; the lost 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


56 

woman who has stolen her way back — after vainly try- 
ing to fight her way back — to Home and Name. There 
she sits in the grim shadow of her own terrible secret, 
disguised in another person’s identity, and established 
in another person’s place. Mercy Merrick had only to 
dare, and to become Grace Roseberry if she pleased. 
She has dared; and she has been Grace Roseberry for 
nearly four months past. 

At this moment, while Lady Janet is talking to Horace 
Holmcroft, something that has passed between them 
has set her thinking of the day when she took the first 
fatal step which committed her to the fraud. 

How marvellously easy of accomplishment the act of 
personation had been! At first sight. Lady Janet had 
yielded to the fascination of the noble and interesting 
face. No need to present the stolen letter; no need to 
repeat the ready-made story. The old lady had put 
the letter aside unopened, and had stopped the story at 
the first words. ‘Your face is your introduction, my 
dear; your father can say nothing for you which you 
have not already said for yourself.’ There was the 
welcome which established her firmly in her false iden- 
tity at the outset. Thanks to her own experience, and 
thanks to the ‘Journal’ of events at Rome, questions 
about her life in Canada, and questions about Colonel 
Roseberry’s illness, found her ready with answers which 
(even if suspicion had existed) would have disarmed 
suspicion on the spot. While the true Grace was slowly 
and painfully winning her way back to life on her bed 
in a German hospital, the false Grace was presented to 
Lady Janet’s friends as the relative by marriage of the 
mistress of Mablethorpe House. From that time for- 
ward nothing had happened to rouse in Mercy the 
faintest suspicion that Grace Roseberry was other than 


LADY JANET’S COMPANION 57 

a dead, and buried, woman. So far as she now knew — 
so far as anyone now knew — she might live out her life 
in perfect security (if her conscience would let her), 
respected, distinguished, and beloved, in the position 
which she had usurped. 

She rose abruptly from the table. The effort of her 
life was to shake herself free of the remembrances which 
haunted her perpetually as they were haunting her now. 
Her memory was her worst enemy; her one refuge from 
it was in change of occupation and change of scene. 

‘May I go into the conservatory. Lady Janet?’ she 
asked. 

‘ Certainly, my dear.’ 

She bent her head to her protectress — looked for a 
moment, with a steady compassionate attention, at 
Horace Holmcroft — and, slowly crossing the room, en- 
tered the winter garden. The eyes of Horace followed 
her, as long as she was in view, with a curious, contra- 
dictory expression of admiration and disapproval. 
When she had passed out of sight, the admiration van- 
ished, but the disapproval remained. The face of the 
young man contracted into a frown : he sat silent, with 
his fork in his hand, playing absently with the fragments 
on his plate. 

‘Take some French pie, Horace,’ said Lady Janet. 

‘No, thank. you.’ 

‘Some more chicken, then?’ 

‘No more chicken.’ 

‘Will nothing tempt you?’ 

‘I will take some more wine, if you will allow me.’ 

He filled his glass (for the fifth or sixth time) with 
claret, and emptied it sullenly at a draught. Lady 
Janet’s bright eyes watched him with sardonic attention; 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


S8 

Lady Janet’s ready tongue spoke out as freely as usual 
what was passing in her mind at the time. 

‘ The air of Kensington doesn’t seem to suit you, my 
young friend,’ she said. ‘The longer you have been 
my guest, the oftener you fill your glass and empty your 
cigar-case. Those are bad signs in a young man. 
When you first came here, you arrived invalided by a 
wound. In your place, I should not have exposed my- 
self to be shot, with no other object in view than de- 
scribing a battle in a newspaper. I suppose tastes 
differ. Are you ill? Does your wound still plague 
you?’ 

‘Not in the least.’ 

‘ Are you out of spirits ? ’ 

Horace Holmcroft dropped his fork, rested his elbows 
on the table, and answered, ‘Awfully.’ 

Even Lady Janet’s large toleration had its limits. 
It embraced every human offence, except a breach of 
good manners. She snatched up the nearest weapon 
of correction at hand— a table-spoon— and rapped her 
young friend smartly with it on the arm that was near- 
est to her. 

‘My table is not the club table,’ said the old lady. 
■‘Hold up your head. Don’t look at your fork— look 
at me. I allow nobody to be out of spirits in My house. 
I consider it to be a reflection on Me. If our quiet life 
here doesn’t suit you, say so plainly, and find some- 
thing else to do. There is employment to be had, I 
suppose— if you choose to apply for it? You needn’t 
smile. I don’t want to see your teeth— I want an 
answer.’ 

Horace admitted, with all needful gravity, that there 
was employment to be had. The war between France 
and Germany, he remarked, was still going on: the 


LADY JANET’S COMPANION 59 

newspaper had offered to employ him again in the capac- 
ity of correspondent. 

‘Don’t speak of the newspapers and the war!’ cried 
Lady Janet, with a sudden explosion of anger, which 
was genuine anger this time. ‘I detest the newspapers! 
I won’t allow the newspapers to enter this house. I lay 
the whole blame of the blood shed between France and 
Germany at their door.’ 

Horace’s eyes opened wide in amazement. The old 
lady was evidently in earnest. ‘ What can you possibly 
mean?’ he asked. ‘Are the newspapers responsible 
for the war?’ 

‘Entirely responsible,’ answered Lady Janet. ‘Why, 
you don’t understand the age you live in ! Does any- 
body do anything nowadays (fighting included) without 
wishing to see it in the newspapers? I subscribe to a 
charity; thou art presented with a testimonial; he 
preaches a sermon; we suffer a grievance; you make a 
discovery; they go to church and get married. And I, 
thou, he; we, you, they, all want one and the same 
thing — we want to see it in the papers. Are kings, 
soldiers, and diplomatists exceptions to the general rule 
of humanity? Not they! I tell you seriously, if the 
newspapers of Europe had one and all decided not to 
take the smallest notice in print of the war between 
France and Germany, it is my firm conviction the war 
would have come to an end for want of encouragement 
long since. Let the pen cease to advertise the sword, 
and I, for one, can see the result. No report— no fighting.’ 

‘ Your views have the merit of perfect novelty, ma’am,’ 
said Horace. ‘Would you object to see them in the 
newspapers?’ 

Lady Janet worsted her young friend with his own 
weapons. 


6o 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


‘ Don’t I live in the latter part of the nineteenth cen- 
tury?’ she asked. ‘In the newspapers, did you say? 
In large print, Horace, if you love me!’ 

Horace changed the subject. 

‘You blame me for being out of spirits,’ he said; 
‘and you seem to think it is because I am tired of my 
pleasant life at Mablethorpe House. I am not in the 
least tired. Lady Janet.’ He looked towards the con- 
servatory: the frown showed itself on his face once 
more. ‘The truth is,’ he resumed, ‘I am not satisfied 
with Grace Roseberry.’ 

‘What has Grace done?’ 

‘ She persists in prolonging our engagement. Nothing 
will persuade her to fix the day for our marriage.’ 

It was true! Mercy had been mad enough to listen 
to him, and to love him. But Mercy was not vile 
enough to marry him under her false character, and in 
her false name. Between three and four months had 
elapsed since Horace had been sent home from the war, 
wounded, and had found the beautiful Englishwoman 
whom he had befriended in France established at Mabel- 
thorpe House. Invited to become Lady Janet’s guest 
(he had passed his holidays as a schoolboy under Lady 
Janet’s roof) — free to spend the idle time of his con- 
valescence from morning to night in Mercy’s society — • 
the impression originally produced on him in the 
French cottage soon strengthened into love. Before 
the month was out, Horace had declared himself, and 
had discovered that he spoke to willing ears. From 
that moment it was only a question of persisting long 
enough in the resolution to gain his point. The mar- 
riage engagement was ratified — most reluctantly on the 
lady’s side — and there the further progress of Horace 
Holmcroft’s suit came to an end. Try as he might he 


LADY JANET’S COMPANION 6i 

failed to persuade his betrothed wife to fix the day for 
the marriage. There were no obstacles in her way. 
She had no near relations of her own to consult. As a 
connection of Lady Janet’s by marriage, Horace’s 
mother and sisters were ready to receive her with all 
the honours due to a new member of the family. No 
pecuniary considerations made it necessary, in this case, 
to wait for a favourable time. Horace was an only son; 
and he had succeeded to his father’s estate with an 
ample income to support it. On both sides alike, there 
was absolutely nothing to prevent the two young people 
from being married as soon as the settlements could be 
drawn. And yet, to all appearance, here was a long 
engagement in prospect, with no better reason than the 
lady’s incomprehensible perversity to explain the delay. 

‘ Can you account for Grace’s conduct ? ’ asked Lady 
Janet. Her manner changed as she put the question. 
She looked and spoke like a person who was perplexed 
and annoyed. 

H hardly like to own it,’ Horace answered, ‘but I am 
afraid she has some motive for deferring our marriage 
which she cannot confide either to you or to me.’ 

Lady Janet started. 

‘What makes you think that?’ she asked. 

‘I have once or twice caught her in tears. Every 
now and then — sometimes when she is talking quite 
gaily — she suddenly changes colour, and becomes silent 
and depressed. Just now, when she left the table 
(didn’t you notice it ?), she looked at me in the strangest 
way — almost as if she was sorry for me. What do these 
things mean?’ 

Horace’s reply, instead of increasing Lady Janet’s 
anxiety, seemed to relieve it. He had observed nothing 
which she had not noticed herself. ‘You foolish boy!’ 


62 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


she said, ‘the meaning is plain enough. Grace has 
been out of health for some time past. The doctor 
recommends change of air. I shall take her away 
with me.’ 

‘It would be more to the purpose,’ Horace rejoined, 
‘if I took her away with me. She might consent, if 
you would only use your influence. Is it asking too 
much to ask you to persuade her ? My mother and my 
sisters have written to her, and have produced no effect. 
Do me the greatest of all kindnesses — speak to her to- 
day!’ He paused, and, possessing himself of Lady 
Janet’s hand, pressed it entreatingly. ‘You have 
always been so good to me,’ he said softly, and pressed 
it again. 

The old lady looked at him. It was impossible to 
dispute that there were attractions in Horace Holm- 
croft’s face which made it well worth looking at. Many 
a woman might have envied him his clear complexion, 
his bright blue eyes, and the warm amber tint in his 
light Saxon hair. Men — especially men skilled in ob- 
serving physiognomy — might have noticed in the shape 
of his forehead, and in the line of his upper lip, the signs 
indicative of a moral nature deficient in largeness and 
breadth — of a mind easily accessible to strong preju- 
dices, and obstinate in maintaining those prejudices in 
the face of conviction itself. To the observation of 
women, these remote defects were too far below the 
surface to be visible. He charmed the sex in general 
by his rare personal advantages, and by the graceful 
deference of his manner. To Lady Janet he was en- 
deared, not by his own merits only, but by old associa- 
tions that were connected with him. His father had 
been one of her many admirers in her young days. 
Circumstances had parted them. Her marriage to 


LADY JANET’S COMPANION 63 

another man had been a childless marriage. In past 
times, when the boy Horace had come to her from 
school, she had cherished a secret fancy (too absurd to 
be communicated to any living creature) that he ought 
to have been her son, and might have been her son, if 
she had married his father! She smiled charmingly, 
old as she was — she yielded as his mother might have 
yielded — when the young man took her hand, and en- 
treated her to interest herself in his marriage. 

‘Must I really speak to Grace?’ she asked, with a 
gentleness of tone and manner far from characteristic, 
on ordinary occasions, of the lady of Mablethorpe 
House. Horace saw that he had gained his point. He 
sprang to his feet; his eyes turned eagerly in the direc- 
tion of the conservatory; his handsome face was radiant 
with hope. Lady Janet (with her mind full of his father) 
stole a last look at him — sighed as she thought of the 
vanished days — and recovered herself. 

‘Go to the smoking-room,’ she said, giving him a 
push towards the door. ‘Away with you, and cultivate 
the favourite vice of the nineteenth century.’ Horace 
attempted to express his gratitude. ‘Go and smoke!’ 
was all she said, pushing him out. ‘Go and smoke!’ 

Left by herself. Lady Janet took a turn in the room, 
and considered a little. 

Horace’s discontent was not unreasonable. There 
was really no excuse for the delay of which he com- 
plained. Whether the young lady had a special motive 
for hanging back, or whether she was merely fretting 
because she did not know her own mind, it was, in 
either case, necessary to come to a distinct understand- 
ing, sooner or later, on the serious question of the 
marriage. The difficulty was, how to approach the 
subject without giving offence. ‘I don’t understand 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


64 

the young women of the present generation/ thought 
Lady Janet. ‘In my time, when we were fond of a 
man, we were ready to marry him at a moment’s notice. 
And this is an age of progress! They ought to be 
readier still.’ 

Arriving, by her own process of induction, at this 
inevitable conclusion, she decided to try what her in- 
fluence could accomplish, and to trust to the inspiration 
of the moment for exerting it in the right way. ‘ Grace 1 ’ 
she called out, approaching the conservatory door. 

The tall lithe figure in its grey dress glided into view, 
and stood relieved against the green background of the 
winter-garden. 

‘Did your ladyship call me?’ 

‘Yes; I want to speak to you. Come and sit down 
by me.’ 

With those words. Lady Janet led the way to a sofa, 
and placed her companion by her side. 


CHAPTER THE SEVENTH 

THE MAN IS COMING 

‘You look very pale this morning, my child.’ 

Mercy sighed wearily. ‘ I am not well,’ she answered. 
‘The slightest noise startles me. I feel tired if I only 
walk across the room.’ 

Lady Janet patted her kindly on the shoulder. ‘We 
must try what a change will do for you. Which shall 
it be ? the Continent, or the sea-side ? ’ 

‘Your ladyship is too kind to me.’ 

‘It is impossible to be too kind to you.’ 

Mercy started. The colour flowed charmingly over 


THE MAN IS COMING 65 

her pale face. ‘ Oh ! ’ she exclaimed impulsively. ‘ Say 
that again!’ 

‘Say it again?’ repeated Lady Janet, with a look of 
surprise. 

‘Yes! Don’t think me presuming; only think me 
vain. I can’t hear you say too often that you have 
learnt to like me. Is it really a pleasure to you to have 
me in the house ? Have I always behaved well since I 
have been with you?’ 

(The one excuse for the act of personation— if excuse 
there could be — lay in the affirmative answer to those 
questions. It would be something, surely, to say of 
the false Grace that the true Grace could not have been 
worthier of her welcome, if the true Grace had been 
received at Mablethorpe House!) 

Lady Janet was partly touched, partly amused, by 
the extraordinary earnestness of the appeal that had 
been made to her. 

‘Have you behaved well?’ she repeated. ‘My dear, 
you talk as if you were a child!’ She laid her hand 
caressingly on Mercy’s arm, and continued, in a graver 
tone : ‘ It is hardly too much to say, Grace, that I bless 
the day when you first came to me. I do believe I 
could be hardly fonder of you if you were my own 
daughter.’ 

Mercy suddenly turned her head aside, so as to hide 
her face. Lady Janet, still touching her arm, felt it 
tremble. ‘What is the matter with you?’ she asked, 
in her abrupt, downright manner. 

‘ I am only very grateful to your ladyship— that is all.’ 

The words were spoken faintly in broken tones. The 
face was still averted from Lady Janet’s view. ‘What 
have I said to provoke this?’ wondered the old lady. 
‘Is she in the melting mood to-day? If she is, now is 


66 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


the time to say a word for Horace.’ Keeping that ex- 
cellent object in view, Lady Janet approached the 
delicate topic with all needful caution at starting. 

‘We have got on so well together,’ she resumed, 
‘that it will not be easy for either of us to feel recon- 
ciled to a change in our lives. At my age it will fall 
hardest on me. What shall I do, Grace, when the day 
comes for parting with my adopted daughter?’ 

Mercy started, and showed her face again. The 
traces of tears were in her eyes. ‘Why should I leave 
you?’ she asked, in a tone of alarm. 

‘Surely you know!’ exclaimed Lady Janet. 

‘Indeed I don’t. Tell me why.’ 

‘Ask Horace to tell you.’ 

The last allusion was too plain to be misunderstood. 
Mercy’s head drooped. She began to tremble again. 
Lady Janet looked at her in blank amazement. 

‘ Is there anything wrong between Horace and you ? ’ 
she asked. 

‘No.’ 

‘You know your own heart, my dear child? You 
have surely not encouraged Horace without loving him?’ 

‘Oh, no!’ 

‘And yet ’ 

For the first time in their experience of each other, 
Mercy ventured to interrupt her benefactress. ‘Dear 
Lady Janet,’ she interposed, gently, ‘I am in no hurry 
to be married. There will be plenty of time in the 
future to talk of that. You had something you wished 
to say to me. What is it?’ 

It was no easy matter to disconcert Lady Janet Roy. 
But that last question fairly reduced her to silence. 
After all that had passed, there sat her young com- 
panion, innocent of the faintest suspicion of the subject 


THE MAN IS COMING 


67 

that was to be discussed between them ! ‘ What are the 
young women of the present time made of?’ thought 
the old lady, utterly at a loss to know what to say next. 
Mercy waited, on her side, with an impenetrable patience 
which only aggravated the difficulties of the position. 
The silence was fast threatening to bring the interview 
to a sudden and untimely end— when the door from 
the library opened, and a man-servant, bearing a little 
silver salver, entered the room. 

Lady Janet’s rising sense of annoyance instantly 
seized on the servant as a victim. ‘What do you 
want?’ she asked sharply. ‘I never rang for you.’ 

‘A letter, my lady. The messenger waits for an 
answer.’ 

The man presented his salver, with the letter on it, 
and withdrew. 

Lady Janet recognised the handwriting on the ad- 
dress with a look of surprise. ‘Excuse me, my dear,’ 
she said, pausing, with her old-fashioned courtesy, be- 
fore she opened the enveolpe. Mercy made the neces- 
sary acknowledgment, and moved away to the other 
end of the room; little thinking that the arrival of the 
letter marked a crisis in her life. Lady Janet put on 
her spectacles. ‘ Odd, that he should have come back 
already!’ she said to herself, as she threw the empty 
envelope on the table. 

The letter contained these lines; the writer of them 
being no other than the man who had preached in the 
chapel of the Refuge: — 

‘Dear Aunt, 

‘I am back again in London, before my time. My 
friend the rector has shortened his holiday, and has 
resumed his duties in the country. I am afraid you 


68 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


will blame me when you hear of the reasons which have 
hastened his return. The sooner I make my confession, 
the easier I shall feel. Besides, I have a special object 
in wishing to see you as soon as possible. May I follow 
my letter to Mablethorpe House ? And may I present 
a lady to you — a perfect stranger — in whom I am in- 
terested ? Pray say Yes, by the bearer, and oblige your 
affectionate nephew, Julian Gray.’ 

Lady Janet referred again suspiciously to the sen- 
tence in the letter which alluded to the ‘ lady.’ 

Julian Gray was her only surviving nephew, the son 
of a favourite sister whom she had lost. He would have 
held no very exalted position in the estimation of his 
aunt — ^who regarded his views in politics and religion 
with the strongest aversion — ’but for his marked resem- 
blance to his mother. This pleaded for him with the 
old lady; aided, as it was, by the pride that she secretly 
felt in the early celebrity which the young clergyman 
had achieved as a writer and a preacher. Thanks to 
these mitigating circumstances, and to Julian’s inex- 
haustible good humour, the aunt and the nephew gen- 
erally met on friendly terms. Apart from what she 
called ‘his detestable opinions,’ Lady Janet was suffi- 
ciently interested in Julian to feel some curiosity about 
the mysterious ‘lady’ mentioned in the letter. Had he 
determined to settle in life? Was his choice already 
made ? And if so, would it prove to be a choice accept- 
able to the family? Lady Janet’s bright face showed 
signs of doubt as she asked herself that last question. 
Julian’s liberal views were capable of leading him to 
dangerous extremes. His aunt shook her head omin- 
ously as she rose from the sofa, and advanced to the 
library door. 


THE MAN IS COMING 


69 

‘ Grace/ she said, pausing and turning round, ‘ I have 
a note to write to my nephew. I shall be back directly.’ 

Mercy approached her, from the opposite extremity 
of the room, with an exclamation of surprise. 

‘Your nephew?’ she repeated. ‘Your ladyship 
never told me you had a nephew.’ 

Lady Janet laughed. ‘I must have had it on the 
tip of my tongue to tell you, over and over again,’ she 
said. ‘But we have had so many things to talk about 
— and, to own the truth, my nephew is not one of my 
favourite subjects of conversation. I don’t mean that 
I dislike him; I detest his principles, my dear, that’s 
all. However, you shall form your own opinion of him; 
he is coming to see me to-day. Wait here till I return; 
I have something more to say about Horace.’ 

Mercy opened the library door for her, closed it 
again, and walked slowly to and fro alone in the room, 
thinking. 

Was her mind running on Lady Janet’s nephew? 
No. Lady Janet’s brief allusion to her relative had 
not led her into alluding to him by his name. Mercy 
was still as ignorant as ever that the preacher at the 
Refuge and the nephew of her benefactress were one 
and the same man. Her memory was busy, now, with 
the tribute which Lady Janet had paid to her at the 
outset of the interview between them : ‘ It is hardly too 
much to say, Grace, that I bless the day when you first 
came to me.’ For the moment, there was balm for her 
wounded spirit in the remembrance of those words. 
Grace Roseberry herself could surely have earned no 
sweeter praise than the praise that she had won. The 
next instant she was seized with a sudden horror of her 
own successful fraud. The sense of her degradation 
had never been so bitterly present to her as at that mo- 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


70 

ment. If she could only confess the truth— if she could 
innocently enjoy her harmless life at Mablethorpe 
House— what a grateful, happy woman she might be! 
Was it possible (if she made the confession) to trust to 
her own good conduct to plead her excuse ? No 1 Her 
calmer sense warned her that it was hopeless. The 
place she had won— honestly won— in Lady Janet’s 
estimation, had been obtained by a trick. Nothing 
could alter, nothing could excuse that. She took out 
her handkerchief, and dashed away the useless tears 
that had gathered in her eyes, and tried to turn her 
thoughts some other way. What was it Lady Janet 
had said on going into the library? She had said she 
was coming back to speak about Horace. Mercy 
guessed what the object was; she knew but too well 
what Horace wanted of her. How was she to meet the 
emergency? In the name of Heaven what was to be 
done? Could she let the man who loved her— the 
man whom she loved— drift blindfold into marriage 
with such a woman as she had been? No! it was her 
duty to warn him. How ? Could she break his heart, 
could she lay his life waste, by speaking the cruel words 
which might part them for ever? ‘I can’t tell him! I 
won’t tell him!’ she burst out passionately. ‘The dis- 
grace of it would kill me!’ Her varying mood changed 
as the words escaped her. A reckless defiance of her 
own better nature— that saddest of all the forms in 
which a woman’s misery can express itself— filled her 
heart with its poisoning bitterness. She sat down again 
on the sofa, with eyes that glittered, and cheeks suffused 
with an angry red. ‘I am no worse than another 
woman!’ she thought. ‘Another woman might have 
married him for his money.’ The next moment the 
miserable insufficiency of her own excuse for deceiving 


THE MAN IS COMING 


71 

him showed its hollowness, self-exposed. She covered 
her face with her hands, and found refuge — where she 
had often found refuge before — in the helpless resigna- 
tion of despair. ‘ Oh, that I had died before I entered 
this house! Oh, that I could die and have done with 
it, at this moment!’ So the struggle had ended with 
her hundreds of times already. So it ended now. 

The door leading into the billiard-room opened 
softly. Horace Holmcroft had waited to hear the re- 
sult of Lady Janet’s interference in his favour until he 
could wait no longer. 

He looked in cautiously; ready to withdraw again 
unnoticed, if the two were still talking together. The 
absence of Lady Janet suggested that the interview had 
come to an end. Was his betrothed wife waiting alone 
to speak to him on his return to the room? He ad- 
vanced a few steps. She never moved— she sat heed- 
less, absorbed in her thoughts. Were they thoughts of 
Mm? He advanced a little nearer, and called to her. 

‘Grace!’ 

She sprang to her feet, with a faint cry. ‘ I wish you 
wouldn’t startle me,’ she said irritably, sinking back 
on the sofa. ‘ Any sudden alarm sets my heart beating 
as if it would choke me.’ 

Horace pleaded for pardon with a lover’s humility. 
In her present state of nervous irritation, she was not 
to be appeased. She looked away from him in silence. 
Entirely ignorant of the paroxysm of mental suffering 
through which she had just passed, he seated himself by 
her side, and asked her gently if she had seen Lady 
Janet. She made an affirmative answer with an un- 
reasonable impatience of tone and manner which would 
have warned an older and more experienced man to 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


72 

give her time before he spoke again. Horace was young, 
and weary of the suspense that he had endured in the 
other room. He unwisely pressed her with another 
question. 

‘Has Lady Janet mentioned my name in speaking to 
you?’ 

She turned on him angrily before he could add a 
word more. ‘You have tried to make her hurry me 
into marrying you,’ she burst out. ‘I see it in your 
face!’ 

Plain as the warning was this time, Horace still failed 
to interpret it in the right way. ‘Don’t be angry!’ he 
said, good-humouredly. ‘Is it so very inexcusable to 
ask Lady Janet to intercede for me? I have tried to 
persuade you in vain. My mother and my sisters have 
pleaded for me, and you turn a deaf ear ’ 

She could endure it no longer. She stamped her 
foot on the floor with hysterical vehemence. ‘I am 
weary of hearing of your mother and your sisters!’ she 
broke in violently. ‘You talk of nothing else.’ 

It was just possible to make one more mistake in 
dealing with her — and Horace made it. He took of- 
fence on his side, and rose from the sofa. His mother 
and sisters were high authorities in his estimation; 
they variously represented his ideal of perfection in 
women. He withdrew to the opposite extremity of the 
room, and administered the severest reproof that he 
could think of on the spur of the moment. 

‘ It would be well, Grace, if you followed the example 
set you by my mother and my sisters,’ he said. ‘ They 
are not in the habit of speaking cruelly to those who 
love them.’ 

To all appearance, the rebuke failed to produce the 
slightest effect. She seemed to be as indifferent to it 


THE MAN IS COMING 


73 


as if it had not reached her ears. There was a spirit 
in her — a miserable spirit, born of her own bitter expe- 
rience — which rose in revolt against Horace’s habitual 
glorification of the ladies of his family. ‘ It sickens me,’ 
she thought to herself, ‘ to hear of the virtues of women 
who have never been tempted! Where is the merit of 
living reputably when your life is one course of pros- 
perity and enjoyment ? Has his mother known starva- 
tion ? Have his sisters been left forsaken in the street ? ’ 
It hardened her heart — it almost reconciled her. to de- 
ceiving him — when he set his relatives up as patterns 
for her. Would he never understand that women de- 
tested having other women exhibited as examples to 
them? She looked round at him with a sense of im- 
patient wonder. He was sitting at the luncheon-table, 
with his back turned on her, and his head resting on his 
hand. If he had attempted to rejoin her, she would 
have repelled him; if he had spoken, she would have 
met him with a sharp reply. He sat apart from her 
without uttering a word. In a man’s hands silence is 
the most terrible of all protests, to the woman who 
loves him. Violence she can endure. Words she is 
always ready to meet by words on her side. Silence 
conquers her. After a moment’s hesitation, Mercy 
left the sofa, and advanced submissively towards the 
table. She had offended him — and she alone was in 
fault. How should he know it, poor fellow, when he 
innocently mortified her? Step by step, she drew 
closer and closer. He never looked round; he never 
moved. She laid her hand timidly on his shoulder. 
‘Forgive me, Horace,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘I 
am suffering this morning; I am not myself. I didn’t 
mean what I said. Pray forgive me.’ There was no 
resisting the caressing tenderness of voice and manner 


74 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


which accompanied those words. He looked up; he 
took her hand. She bent over him, and touched his 
forehead with her lips. ‘Am I forgiven?’ she asked. 

‘Oh, my darling,’ he said, ‘if you only knew how I 
loved you!’ 

‘ I do know it,’ she answered gently, twining his hair 
round her finger, and arranging it over his forehead 
where his hand had ruffled it. 

They were completely absorbed in each other, or they 
must, at that moment, have heard the library door open 
at the other end of the room. 

Lady Janet had written the necessary reply to her 
nephew, and had returned, faithful to her engagement, 
to plead the cause of Horace. The first object that 
met her view was her client pleading, with conspicuous 
success, for himself! ‘I am not wanted, evidently,’ 
thought the old lady. She noiselessly closed the door 
again, and left the lovers by themselves. 

Horace returned, with unwise persistency, to the 
question of the deferred marriage. At the first words 
that he spoke, she drew back directly — sadly, not 
angrily. 

‘Don’t press me to-day,’ she said; ‘I am not well to- 
day.’ 

He rose, and looked at her anxiously. ‘ May I speak 
about it to-morrow?’ 

‘Yes, to-morrow.’ She returned to the sofa, and 
changed the subject. ‘What a time Lady Janet is 
away,’ she said. ‘What can be keeping her so 
long?’ 

Horace did his best to appear interested in the ques- 
tion of Lady Janet’s prolonged absence. ‘What made 
her leave you?’ he asked, standing at the back of the 
sofa and leaning over her. 


THE MAN IS COMING 


75 

‘She went into the library to write a note to her 
nephew. By-the-by, who is her nephew?^ 

‘Is it possible you don’t know?’ 

‘Indeed I don’t.’ 

‘You have heard of him, no doubt,’ said Horace. 
‘Lady Janet’s nephew is a celebrated man.’ He 
pp,used, and stooping nearer to her, lifted a love-lock 
that lay over her shoulder, and pressed it to his lips. 
‘Lady Janet’s nephew,’ he resumed, ‘is Julian Gray.’ 

She suddenly looked round at him in blank, be- 
wildered terror, as if she doubted the evidence of her 
own senses. 

Horace was completely taken by surprise. ‘ My dear 
Grace!’ he exclaimed; ‘what have I said or done to 
startle you this time?’ 

She held up her hand for silence. ‘Lady Janet’s 
nephew is Julian Gray,’ she repeated slowly; ‘and I 
only know it now!’ 

Horace’s perplexity increased. ‘My darling, now 
you do know it, what is there to alarm you?’ he 
asked. 

(There was enough to alarm the boldest woman living 
— in such a position, and with such a temperament as 
hers. To her mind the personation of Grace Rose- 
berry has assumed the aspect of a fatality. What lesser 
influence could have led her blindfold to the house in 
which she and the preacher at the Refuge were to meet ? 
He was coming— the man who had reached her inmost 
heart, who had influenced her whole life ! Was the day 
of reckoning coming with him?) 

‘Don’t notice me,’ she said faintly. ‘I have been ill 
all the morning. You saw it yourself when you came 
in here; even the sound of your voice alarmed me. I 
shall be better directly. I am afraid I startled you ? ’ 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


76 

‘My dear Grace, it almost looked as if you were 
terrified at the sound of Julian’s name! He is a public 
celebrity, I know; and I have seen ladies start and 
stare at him when he entered a room. But you looked 
perfectly panic-stricken.’ 

She rallied her courage by a desperate effort; she 
laughed— a harsh, uneasy laugh— and stopped him by 
putting her hand over his mouth. ‘Absurd!’ she said 
lightly. ‘As if Mr. Julian Gray had anything to do 
with my looks! I am better already. See for your- 
self!’ She looked round at him again with a ghastly 
gaiety; and returned, with a desperate assumption of 
indifference, to the subject of Lady Janet’s nephew. 
‘Of course I have heard of him,’ she said. ‘Do you 
know that he is expected here to-day? Don’t stand 
there behind me— it’s so hard to talk to you. Come 
and sit down?’ 

He obeyed — but she had not quite satisfied him yet. 
His face had not lost its expression of anxiety and sur- 
prise. She persisted in playing her part; determined 
to set at rest in him any possible suspicion that she had 
reasons of her own for being afraid of Julian Gray. 
‘Tell me about this famous man of yours,’ she said, 
putting her arm familiarly through his arm. ‘ What is 
he like?’ 

The caressing action and the easy tone had their 
effect on Horace. His face began to clear; he answered 
her lightly on his side. 

‘Prepare yourself to meet the most unclerical of 
clergymen,’ he said. ‘ Julian is a lost sheep among the 
parsons, and a thorn in the side of his bishop. Preaches, 
if they ask him, in Dissenters’ chapels. Declines to 
set up any pretensions to priestly authority and priestly 
power. Goes about doing good on a plan of his own. 


THE MAN IS COMING 


77 


Is quite resigned never to rise to the high places in his 
profession. Says it’s rising high enough for him to be 
the Archdeacon of the afflicted, the Dean of the hungry, 
and the Bishop of the poor. With all his oddities, as 
good a fellow as ever lived. Immensely popular with 
the women. They all go to him for advice. I wish you 
would go, too.’ 

Mercy changed colour. ‘What do you mean?’ she 
asked sharply. 

‘ Julian is famous for his powers of persuasion,’ said 
Horace, smiling. ‘ If he spoke to you, Grace, he would 
prevail on you to fix the day. Suppose I ask Julian to 
plead for me?’ 

He made the proposal in jest. Mercy’s unquiet 
mind accepted it as addressed to her in earnest. ‘He 
will do it,’ she thought, with a sense of indescribable 
terror, ‘ if I don’t stop him ! ’ There was but one chance 
for her. The only certain way to prevent Horace from 
appealing to his friend was to grant what Horace wished 
for before his friend entered the house. She laid her 
hand on his shoulder; she hid the terrible anxieties 
that were devouring her, under an assumption of 
coquetry painful and pitiable to see. 

‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ she said, gaily. ‘What were 
we saying just now — before we began to speak of Mr. 
Julian Gray?’ 

‘We were wondering what had become of Lady 
Janet,’ Horace replied. 

She tapped him impatiently on the shoulder. ‘No! 
no! It was something you said before that.’ 

Her eyes completed what her words had left unspoken. 
Horace’s arm stole round her waist. 

‘I was saying that I loved you,’ he answered, in a 
whisper. 


78 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


‘Only that?^ 

‘Are you tired of hearing it?’ 

She smiled charmingly. ‘Are you so very much in 

earnest about — about ?’ She stopped, and looked 

away from him. 

‘About our marriage?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘It is the one dearest wish of my life.’ 

‘ Really ? ’ 

‘Really!’ 

There was a pause. Mercy’s fingers toyed ner- 
vously with the trinkets at her watch-chain. ‘When 
would you like it to be?’ she said very softly, with her 
whole attention fixed on the watch-chain. 

She had never spoken, she had never looked, as she 
spoke and looked now. Horace was afraid to believe 
in his own good fortune. ‘Oh, Grace!’ he exclaimed, 
^you are not trifling with me?’ 

‘What makes you think I am trifling with you?’ 

Horace was innocent enough to answer her seriously. 
^You would not even let me speak of our marriage just 
now,’ he said. 

‘Never mind what I did just now,’ she retorted, 
petulantly. ‘They say women are changeable. It is 
one of the defects of the sex.’ 

‘Heaven be praised for the defects of the sex!’ cried 
Horace, with devout sincerity. ‘Do you really leave 
me to decide?’ 

‘ If you insist on it.’ 

Horace considered for a moment — the subject being 
the law of marriage. ‘We may be married by license 
in a fortnight,’ he said. ‘I fix this day fortnight.’ 

She held up her hands in protest. 

‘Why not? My lawyer is ready. There are no 


THE MAN IS COMING 


79 

preparations to make. You said when you accepted 
me that it was to be a private marriage.^ 

Mercy was obliged to own that she had certainly said 
that. 

‘We might be married at once — if the law would 
only let us. This day fortnight ! Say — yes ! ’ He drew 
her closer to him. There was a pause. The mask of 
coquetry — badly worn from the first — dropped from 
her. Her sad grey eyes rested compassionately on his 
eager face. ‘Don’t look so serious,’ he said. ‘Only 
one little word, Grace! Only Yes.’ 

She sighed, and said it. He kissed her passionately. 
It was only by a resolute effort that she released herself. 
‘ Leave me 1 ’ she said, faintly. ‘ Pray leave me by myself 1 ’ 

She was in earnest — strangely in earnest. She was 
trembling from head to foot. Horace rose to leave her. 
‘I will find Lady Janet,’ he said; ‘I long to show the 
dear old lady that I have recovered my spirits, and to 
tell her why.’ He turned round at the library door. 
‘You won’t go away? You will let me see you again 
when you are more composed?’ 

‘I will wait here,’ said Mercy. . 

Satisfied with that reply, he left the room. 

Her hands dropped on her lap; her head sank back 
wearily on the cushions at the head of the sofa. There 
was a dazed sensation in her: her mind felt stunned. 
She wondered vacantly whether she was awake or 
dreaming. Had she really said the word which pledged 
her to marry Horace Holmcroft in a fortnight ? A fort- 
night! Something might happen in that time to pre- 
vent it: she might find her way in a fortnight out of the 
terrible position in which she stood. Anyway, come 
what might of it, she had chosen the preferable alterna- 
tive to a private interview with Julian Gray. She 


8o 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


raised herself from her recumbent position with a start, 
as the idea of the interview — dismissed for the last few 
minutes— possessed itself again of her mind. Her ex- 
cited imagination figured Julian Gray as present in the 
room at that moment, speaking to her as Horace had 
proposed. She saw him seated close at her side — this 
man who had shaken her to the soul when he was in 
the pulipt, and when she was listening to him (unseen) 
at the other end of the chapel — she saw him close by 
her, looking her searchingly in the face; seeing her 
shameful secret in her eyes; hearing it in her voice; 
feeling it in her trembling hands; forcing it out of her 
word by word, till she fell prostrate at his feet with the 
confession of the fraud. Her head dropped again on 
the cushions; she hid her face in horror of the scene 
which her excited fancy had conjured up. Even now, 
when she had made that dreaded interview needless, 
could she feel sure (meeting him only on the most dis- 
tant terms) of not betraying herself? She could not 
feel sure. Something in her shuddered and shrank at 
the bare idea of finding herself in the same room with 
him. She felt it, she knew it: her guilty conscience 
owned and feared its master in Julian Gray! 

The minutes passed. The violence of her agitation 
began to tell physically on her weakened frame. 

She found herself crying silently without knowing 
why. A weight was on her head, a weariness was in 
all her limbs. She sank lower on the cushions — her 
eyes closed — the monotonous ticking of the clock on 
the mantel-piece grew drowsily fainter and fainter on 
her ear. Little by little she dropped into slumber; 
slumber so light that she started when a morsel of coal 
fell into the grate, or when the birds chirped and twit- 
tered in their aviary in the winter garden. 


THE MAN APPEARS 


8i 


Lady Janet and Horace came in. She was faintly 
conscious of persons in the room. After an interval 
she opened her eyes, and half rose to speak to them. 
The room was empty again. They had stolen out 
softly and left her to repose. Her eyes closed once 
more. She dropped back into slumber, and from 
slumber, in the favouring warmth and quiet of the 
place, into deep and dreamless sleep. 


CHAPTER THE EIGHTH 

THE MAN APPEARS 

After an interval of rest, Mercy was aroused by the 
shutting of a glass door at the far end of the conserva- 
tory. This door, leading into the garden, was used only 
by the inmates of the house, or by old friends privileged 
to enter the reception rooms by that way. Assuming 
that either Horace or Lady Janet were returning to the 
dining-room, Mercy raised herself a little on the sofa 
and listened. 

The voice of one of the men-servants caught her ear. 
It was answered by another voice, which instantly set 
her trembling in every limb. 

She started up, and listened again in breathless ter- 
ror. Yes! there was no mistaking it. The voice that 
was answering the servant was the unforgotten voice 
which she had heard at the Refuge. The visitor who 
had come in by the glass door was — Julian Gray! 

His rapid footsteps advanced nearer and nearer to 
the dining-room. She recovered herself sufficiently to 
hurry to the library door. Her hand shook so that she 
failed at first to open it. She had just succeeded when 
she heard him again — speaking to her. 


82 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 

‘Pray don’t run away! I am nothing very formid- 
able. Only Lady Janet’s nephew— Julian Gray.’ 

She turned slowly, spell-bound by his voice, and con- 
fronted him in silence. 

He was standing, hat in hand, at the entrance to the 
conservatory, dressed in black, and wearing a white 
cravat— but with a studious avoidance of anything 
specially clerical in the make and form of his clothes. 
Young as he was, there were marks of care already on 
his face, and the hair was prematurely thin and scanty 
over his forehead. His slight active figure was of no 
more than the middle height. His complexion was 
pale. The lower part of his face, without beard or 
whiskers, was in no way remarkable. An average ob- 
server would have passed him by without notice — but 
for his eyes. These alone made a marked man of him. 
The unusual size of the orbits in which they were set 
was enough of itself to attract attention; it gave a 
grandeur to his head, which the head, broad and firm 
as it was, did not possess. As to the eyes themselves, 
the soft lustrous brightness of them defied analysis. 
No two people could agree about their colour; divided 
opinion declaring alternately that they were dark grey 
or black. Painters had tried to reproduce them, and 
had given up the effort in despair of seizing any one 
expression in the bewildering variety of expressions 
which they presented to view. They were eyes that 
could charm at one momeht, and terrify at another; 
eyes that could set people laughing or crying almost at 
will. In action and in repose they were irresistible alike. 
When they first descried Mercy running to the door, 
they brightened gaily with the merriment of a child. 
When she turned and faced him, they changed instantly; 
softening and glowing as they mutely owned the interest 


THE MAN APPEARS 


83 

and the admiration which the first sight of her had 
roused in him. His tone and manner altered at the 
same time. He addressed her with the deepest respect 
when he spoke his next words. 

‘Let me entreat you to favour me by resuming your 
seat/ he said. ‘And let me ask your pardon if I have 
thoughtlessly intruded on you.^ 

He paused, waiting for her reply before he advanced 
into the room. Still spell-bound by his voice, she re- 
covered self-control enough to bow to him and to re- 
sume her place on the sofa. It was impossible to leave 
her now. After looking at her for a moment, he entered 
the room without speaking to her again. She was 
beginning to perplex as well as to interest him. ‘No 
common sorrow,’ he thought, ‘has set its mark on that 
woman’s face; no common heart beats in that woman’s 
breast. Who can she be?’ 

Mercy rallied her courage, and forced herself to 
speak to him. 

‘Lady Janet' is in the library, I believe,’ she said 
timidly. ‘Shall I tell her you are here?’ 

‘Don’t disturb Lady Janet, and don’t disturb your- 
self.’ With that answer he approached the luncheon- 
table, delicately giving her time to feel more at her ease. 
He took up what Horace had left of the bottle of claret 
and poured it into a glass. ‘My aunt’s claret shall 
represent my aunt for the present,’ he said, smiling, as 
he turned towards her once more. ‘ I have had a long 
walk, and I may venture to help myself in this house 
without invitation. Is it useless to offer you anything ? ’ 

Mercy made the necessary reply. She was begin- 
ning already, after her remarkable experience of him to 
wonder at his easy manners and his light way of talking. 

He emptied his glass with the air of a man who 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


84 

thoroughly understood and enjoyed good wine. ‘My 
aunt’s claret is worthy of my aunt,’ he said, with comic 
gravity, as he set down the glass. ‘ Both are the genuine 
products of Nature.’ He seated himself at the table, 
and looked critically at the different dishes left on it. 
One dish especially attracted his attention. ‘What is 
this?’ he went on. ‘A French pie! It seems grossly 
unfair to taste French wine, and to pass over French 
pie without notice.’ He took up a knife and fork, and 
enjoyed the pie as critically as he had enjoyed the wine. 
‘Worthy of the Great Nation!’ he exclaimed with en- 
thusiasm. ‘ Vive la France!^ 

Mercy listened and looked, in inexpressible astonish- 
ment. He was utterly unlike the picture which her 
fancy had drawn of him in everyday life. Take off his 
white cravat, and nobody would have discovered that 
this famous preacher was a clergyman! 

He helped himself to another plateful of the pie, and 
spoke more directly to Mercy; alternately eating and 
talking as composedly and pleasantly as if they had 
known each other for years. 

T came here by way of Kensington Gardens,’ he said. 
‘For some time past I have been living in a flat, ugly, 
barren agricultural district. You can’t think how 
pleasant I found the picture presented by the Gardens, 
as a contrast. The ladies in their rich winter dresses, 
the smart nursery maids, the lovely children, the ever- 
moving crowd skating on the ice of the Round Pond; 
it was all so exhilarating after what I have been used to 
that I actually caught myself whistling as I walked 
through the brilliant scene! (In my time boys used 
awlays to whistle when they were in good spirits, and I 
have not got over the habit yet.) Who do you think I 
met when I was in full song?’ 


THE MAN APPEARS 


85 

As well as her amazement would let her, Mercy ex- 
cused herself from guessing. She had never in all her 
life before spoken to any living being so confusedly 
and so unintelligibly as she now spoke to Julian 
Gray! 

He went on more gaily than ever, without appearing 
to notice the effect that he had produced on her. 

‘Whom did I meet,’ he repeated, ‘when I was in full 
song? My bishop! If I had been whistling a sacred 
melody, his lordship might perhaps have excused my 
vulgarity out of consideration for my music. Unfor- 
tunately, the composition I was executing at the moment 
(I am one of the loudest of living whistlers) was by Verdi 
— “Za Donna e Mohile'"^ — -familiar, no doubt, to his 
lordship on the street organs. He recognised the tune, 
poor man, and when I took off my hat to him he looked 
the other way. Strange, in a world that is bursting 
with sin and sorrow, to treat such a trifle seriously as a 
cheerful clergyman whistling a tune ! ’ He pushed away 
his plate as he said the last words, and went on simply 
and earnestly in an altered tone. ‘I have never been 
able,’ he said, ‘to see why we should assert ourselves 
among other men as belonging to a particular caste, 
and as being forbidden, in any harmless thing, to do 
as other people do. The disciples of old set us no such 
example; they were wiser and better than we are. I 
venture to say, that one of the worst obstacles in the 
way of our doing good among our fellow-creatures is 
raised by the mere assumption of the clerical manner 
and the clerical voice. For my part, I set up no claim 
to be more sacred and more reverend than any other 
Christian man who does what good he can.’ He 
glanced brightly at Mercy, looking at him in helpless 
perplexity. The spirit of fun took possession of him 


86 


THE NEW MAGDALEN 


again. ‘ Are you a Radical ? ’ he asked, with a humour- 
ous twinkle in his large lustrous eyes. ‘I am!’ 

Mercy tried hard to understand him, and tried in 
vain. Could this be the preacher whose words had 
charmed, purified, ennobled her? Was this the man 
whose sermon had drawn tears from women about her 
whom she knew to be shameless and hardened in 
crime? Yes! The eyes that now rested on her hu- 
morously were the beautiful eyes which had looked 
into her soul. The voice that had just addressed a 
jesting question to her was the deep and mellow voice 
which had once thrilled her to the heart. In the pulpit, 
he was an angel of mercy; out of the pulpit, he was a 
boy let loose from school. 

‘Don’t let me startle you!’ he said, good-naturedly, 
noticing her confusion. ‘ Public opinion has called me 
by harder names than the name of “Radical.” I have 
been spending my time lately — as I told you just now — 
in an agricultural district. My business theie was to 
perform the duty for the rector of the place, who wanted 
a holiday. How do you think the experiment has 
ended? The Squire of the parish calls me a Com- 
munist; the farmers denounce me as an Incendiary; 
my friend the rector has been recalled in a hurry; and 
I have now the honour of speaking to you in the char- 
acter of a banished man, who has made a respectable 
neighbourhood too hot to hold him.’ 

With that frank avowal, he left the luncheon-table, 
and took a chair near Mercy. 

‘You will naturally be anxious,’ he went on, ‘to know 
what my offence was. Do you understand Political 
Economy and the Laws of Supply and Demand?’ 

Mercy owned that she did not understand them. 

‘No more do I — in a Christian country,’ he said. 


THE MAN APPEARS 87 

‘That was my offence. You shall hear my confession 
(just as my aunt will hear it) in two words.’ He paused 
for a little while; his variable manner changed again. 
Mercy, shyly looking at him, saw a new expression in 
his eyes — an expression which recalled her first re- 
membrance of him as nothing had recalled it yet. T 
had no idea,’ he resumed, ‘of what the life of a farm- 
labourer really was, in some parts of England, until I 
undertook the rector’s duties. Never before had I 
seen such dire wretchedness as I saw in the cottages. 
Never before had I met with such noble patience under 
suffering as I found among the people. The martyrs 
of old could endure, and die. I asked myself if they 
could endure, and live, like the martyrs whom I saw 
round me ? — live, week after week, month after month, 
year after year, on the brink of starvation; live, and 
see their pining children growing up round them, to 
work and want in their turn; live, with the poor man’s 
parish-prison to look to as the end, when hunger and 
labour had done their worst! Was God’s beautiful 
earth made to hold such misery as this ? I can hardly 
think of it, I can hardly speak of it, even now, with dry 
eyes!’ 

His head sank on his breast. He waited — mastering 
his emotion before he spoke again. Now, at last, she 
knew him once more. Now he was the man, indeed, 
whom she had expected to see. Unconsciously, she sat 
listening, with her eyes fixd on his face, with her heart 
hanging on his words, in the very attitude of the bygone 
day, when she had heard him for the first time! 

‘I did all I could to plead for the helpless ones,’ he 
resumed. ‘ I went round among the holders of the land 
to say a word for the tillers of the land. “These patient 
people don’t want much” (I said); “in the name of 



THE MAN APPEARS 


89 

by a subscription.’ Mercy persisted, and conquered; 
she made him prove the truth of his own profound 
observation of clerical human nature by taking a piece 
of money from the purse. Tf I must take it — I must!’ 
he remarked. ‘ Thank you for setting the good example I 
thank you for giving the timely help 1 What name shall 
I put down on my list?’ 

Mercy’s eyes looked confusedly away from him. 
‘ No name,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘ My subscription 
is anonymous.’ 

As she replied, the library door opened. To her 
infinite relief — to Julian’s secret disappointment — Lady 
Janet Roy and Horace Holmcroft entered the room to- 
gether. 

‘Julian!’ exclaimed Lady Janet, holding up her 
hands in astonishment. 

He kissed his aunt on the cheek. ‘Your ladyship is 
looking charmingly.’ He gave his hand to Horace. 
Horace took it, and passed on to Mercy. They walked 
away together slowly to the other end of the room. 
Julian seized on the chance which left him free to speak 
privately to his aunt. 

‘I came in through the conservatory,’ he said. ‘And 
I found that young lady in the room. Who is she ? ’ 

‘Are you very much interested in her?’ asked Lady 
Janet, in her gravely ironical way. 

Julian answered in one expressive word. ‘Inde- 
scribably!’ 

Lady Janet called to Mercy to join her. 

‘My dear,’ she said, ‘let me formally present my 
nephew to you. Julian, this is Miss Grace Roseberry 

’ She suddenly checked herself. The instant she 

pronounced the name, Julian started as if it was a sur- 
prise to him. ‘What is it?’ she asked, sharply. 






NEWS FROM MANNHEIM 


91 

hearing of Horace and Mercy. 'About that letter of 
yours?’ she proceeded. ‘There is one line in it that 
rouses my curiosity. Who is the mysterious “lady” 
whom you wish to present to me ? ’ 

Julian started and changed colour. 

‘ I can’t tell you now,’ he said, in a whisper. 

‘Why not?’ 

To Lady Janet’s unutterable astonishment, instead 
of replying, Julian looked round at her adopted daughter 
once more. 

‘ What has she got to do with it ? ’ asked the old lady, 
out of all patience with him. 

‘It is impossible for me to tell you,’ he answered, 
gravely, ‘while Miss Roseberry is in the room.’ 


CHAPTER THE NINTH 

NEWS FROM MANNHEIM 

Lady Janet’s curiosity was by this time thoroughly 
aroused. Summoned to explain who the nameless lady 
mentioned in his letter could possibly be, Julian had 
looked at her adopted daughter. Asked next to ex- 
plain what her adopted daughter had to do with it, he 
had declared that he could not answer while Miss 
Roseberry was in the room. 

What did he mean ? Lady Janet determined to find 
out. 

‘I hate all mysteries,’ she said to Julian. ‘And as 
for secrets, I consider them to be one of the forms of ill- 
breeding. People in our rank of life ought to be above 
whispering in comers. If you must have your mystery, 
I can offer you a corner in the library. Come with me.’ 



NEWS FROM MANNHEIM 


93 

valescent Home? The members, as I understand it, 
are to decide to-day which of the plans for the new 
building they are to adopt. I cannot surely presume 
to vote in your place?’ 

‘You can vote, my dear child, just as well as I can,’ 
replied the old lady. ‘Architecture is one of the lost 
arts. You know nothing about it; I know nothing 
about it; the architects themselves know nothing about 
it. One plan is no doubt just as bad as the other. 
Vote, as I should vote, with the majority. Or as poor 
dear Dr. Johnson said, “Shout with the loudest mob.” 
Away with you — and don’t keep the committee wait- 
ing.’ 

Horace hastened to open the door for Mercy. 

‘How long shall you be away?’ he whispered con- 
fidentially. ‘I had a thousand things to say to you, 
and they have interrupted us.’ 

‘I shall be back in an hour.’ 

‘We shall have the room to ourselves by that time. 
Come here when you return. You will find me waiting 
for you.’ 

Mercy pressed his hand significantly and went out. 

Lady Janet turned to Julian, who had thus far re- 
mained in the background, still, to all appearance, as 
unwilling as ever to enlighten his aunt. 

‘Well?’ she said. ‘What is tying your tongue now? 
Grace is out of the room; why don’t you begin? Is 
Horace in the way?’ 

‘Not in the least. I am only a little uneasy ’ 

‘Uneasy about what?’ 

‘I am afraid you have put that charming creature to 
some inconvenience in sending her away just at this 
time.’ 

Horace looked up suddenly with a flush on his face. 



NEWS FROM MANNHEIM 


95 

Lady Janet’s fingers drummed impatiently on the 
table. ‘Have I not warned you, Julian, that I hate 
mysteries? Will you, or will you not, explain your- 
self ? ’ 

Before it was possible to answer, Horace rose from 
his chair. ‘ Perhaps I am in the way ? ’ he said. 

Julian signed to him to sit down again. 

‘I have already told Lady Janet that you are not in 
the way,’ he answered. ‘ I now tell you — as Miss Rose- 
berry’s future husband — that you too have an interest 
in hearing what I have to say.’ 

Horace resumed his seat with an air of suspicious 
surprise. Julian addressed himself to Lady Janet. 

‘You have often heard me speak,’ he began, ‘of an 
old friend of mine who had an appointment abroad ? ’ 

‘Yes. The English consul at Mannheim?’ 

‘The same. When I returned from the country, I 
found, among my other letters, a long letter from the 
consul. I have brought it with me, and I propose to 
read certain passages from it, which tell a very strange 
story more plainly and more credibly than I can tell it 
in my own words.’ 

‘Will it be very long?’ enquired Lady Janet, looking 
with some alarm at the closely-written sheets of paper 
which her nephew spread open before him. 

Horace followed with a question on his side. 

‘ You are sure I am interested in it ? ’ he asked. ‘ The 
■ consul at Mannheim is a total stranger to me.’ 

‘I answer for it,’ replied Julian, gravely, ‘neither my 
aunt’s patience nor yours, Horace, will be thrown away 
if you will favour me by listening attentively to what I 
am about to read.’ 

With these words he began his first extract from the 
consul’s letter. 




NEWS FROM MANNHEIM 


97 

Ht is the same!’ said Horace. ‘Lady Janet, we are 
really interested in this. You remember my telling 
you how I first met with Grace ? And you have heard 
more about it since, no doubt, from Grace herself?’ 

‘She has a horror of referring to that part of her 
journey home,’ replied Janet Lady. ‘She mentioned 
her having been stopped on the frontier, and her finding 
herself accidentally in the company of another English- 
woman, a perfect stranger to her. I naturally asked 
questions on my side, and was shocked to hear that she 
had seen the woman killed by a German shell, almost 
close at her side. Neither she nor I have had any relish 
for returning to the subject since. You were quite 
right, Julian, to avoid speaking of it while she was in 
the room. I understand it all now. Grace, I suppose, 
mentioned my name and her name to her fellow- 
traveller. The woman is in want of assistance, and 
she applies to me through you. I will help her; but 
she must not come here until I have prepared Grace 
for seeing her again, a living woman. For the present, 
there is no reason why they should meet.’ 

‘I am not sure about that,’ said Julian in low tones, 
without looking up at his aunt. 

‘ What do you mean ? Is the mystery not at an end 
yet?’ 

‘The mystery is not even begun yet. Let my friend 
the consul proceed.’ 

Julian returned for the second time to his extract 
from the letter. 

‘“After a careful examination of the supposed 
corpse, the German surgeon arrived at the conclusion 
that a case of suspended animation had (in the hurry of 
the French retreat) been mistaken for a case of death. 
Feeling a professional interest in the subject, he decided 



NEWS FROM MANNHEIM 


99 

determine whether it was necessary to trouble you or 
not.”' 

‘You know best, Julian,' said Lady Janet. ‘But I 
own I don't quite see in what way I am interested in 
this part of the story.’ 

‘Just what I was going to say,’ added Horace. ‘It 
is very sad, no doubt. But what have we to do with 
it?' 

‘Let me read my third extract,' Julian answered, 
‘and you will see.’ 

He turned to the third extract, and read as follows: 

‘“At last I received a message from the hospital in- 
forming me that Mercy Merrick was out of danger, and 
that she was capable (though still very weak) of an- 
swering any questions which I might think it desirable 
to put to her. On reaching the hospital, I was requested, 
rather to my surprise, to pay my first visit to the head 
physician in his private room. ‘I think it right,’ said 
this gentleman, ‘ to warn you, before you see the patient, 
to be very careful how you speak to her, and not to 
irritate her by showing any surprise or expressing any 
doubts if she talks to you in an extravagant manner. 
We differ in opinion about her here. Some of us (my- 
self among the number) doubt whether the recovery of 
her mind has accompanied the recovery of her bodily 
powers. Without pronouncing her to be mad — she is 
perfectly gentle and harmless — we are nevertheless of 
opinion that she is suffering under a species of insane 
delusion. Bear in mind the caution which I have given 
you — and now go and judge for yourself.' I obeyed, in 
some little perplexity and surprise. The sufferer, when 
I approached her bed, looked sadly weak and worn; 
but, as far as I could judge, seemed to be in full pos- 
session of herself. Her tone and manner were unques- 



NEWS FROM MANNHEIM 


lOI 


that Mercy Merrick has taken them?^ ‘Nobody else 
could have taken them — that’s how I know it. Do 
you believe me or not?’ She was beginning to excite 
herself again; I assured her that I would at once send 
to make enquiries after Mercy Merrick. She turned 
round, contented, on the pillow. ‘ There’s a good man V 
she said. ‘Come back and tell me when you have 
caught her.’ Such was my first interview with the Eng- 
lish patient at the hospital at Mannheim. It is need- 
less to say that I doubted the existence of the absent 
person described as a nurse. However, it was possible 
to make enquiries, by applying to the surgeon, Ignatius 
Wetzel, whose whereabouts was known to his friends 
in Mannheim. I wrote to him, and received his an- 
swer in due time. After the night attack of the Ger- 
mans had made them masters of the French position, 
he had entered the cottage occupied by the French 
ambulance. He had found the wounded Frenchmen 
left behind, but had seen no such person in attendance 
on them as the nurse in the black dress, with the red 
cross on her shoulder. The only living woman in the 
place was a young English lady, in a grey travelling 
cloak, who had been stopped on the frontier, and who 
was forwarded on her way home by the war corres- 
pondent of an English journal.”’ 

‘That was Grace,’ said Lady Janet. 

‘And I was the war correspondent,’ added Horace. 

‘A few words more,’ said Julian, ‘and you will under- 
stand my object in claiming your attention.’ 

He returned to the letter for the last time, and con- 
cluded his extracts from it as follows: 

“‘Instead of attending at the hospital myself, I 
communicated by letter the failure of my attempt to 
discover the missing nurse. For some little time after- 



NEWS FROM MANNHEIM 


103 


will hear what she says; and you will be better able to 
discover than I am whether she really has any claim on 
Lady Janet Roy. One last word of information, which 
it may be necessary to add — and I shall close this in- 
ordinately long letter. At my first interview with her I 
abstained, as I have already told you, from irritating 
her by any enquiries on the subject of her name. On 
this second occasion, however, I decided on putting the 
question.’’ ’ 

As he read those last words, Julian became aware of 
a sudden movement on the part of his aunt. Lady 
Janet had risen softly from her chair, and had passed 
behind him with the purpose of reading the consul’s 
letter for herself over her nephew’s shoulder. Julian 
detected the action just in time to frustrate Lady Janet’s 
intention by placing his hand over the last two lines of 
the letter. 

‘What do you do that for?’ enquired his aunt 
sharply. 

‘You are welcome. Lady Janet, to read the close of 
the letter for yourself,’ Julian replied. ‘But before you 
do so I am anxious to prepare you for a very great sur- 
prise. Compose yourself, and let me read on slowly, 
with your eye on me, until I uncover the last two words 
which close my friend’s letter.’ 

He read the end of the letter, as he had proposed, in 
these terms: 

‘ “I looked the woman straight in the face, and I said 
to her, ‘You have denied that the name marked on the 
clothes which you wore when you came here was your 
name. If you are not Mercy Merrick, who are you?’ 
She answered instantly, ‘My name is”” 

Julian removed his hand from the page. Lady 
Janet looked at the next two words, and started back 



A COUNCIL OF THREE 


105 

‘There can be no doubt,’ Horace agreed, ‘that Grace 
must be kept in the dark, in her present state of health. 
The servants had better be warned beforehand, in case 
of this adventuress or madwoman, whichever she may 
be, attempting to make her way into the house.’ 

‘It shall be done immediately,’ said Lady Janet. 
‘What surprises we, Julian (ring the bell, if you please), 
is, that you should describe yourself in your letter as 
feeling an interest in this person.’ 

Julian answered — without ringing the bell. 

‘I am more interested than ever,’ he said, ‘now I 
find that Miss Roseberry herself is your guest at Mable- 
thorpe House.’ 

‘You were always perverse, Julian, as a child, in 
your likings and dislikings,’ Lady Janet rejoined. ‘ Why 
don’t you ring the bell?’ 

‘For one good reason, my dear aunt. I don’t wish 
to hear you tell your servants to close the door on this 
friendless creature.’ 

Lady Janet cast a look at her nephew which plainly ex- 
pressed that she thought he had taken a liberty with her. 

‘You don’t expect me to see the woman?’ she asked, 
in a tone of cold surprise. 

‘I hope you will not refuse to see her,’ Julian an- 
swered quietly. ‘I was out when she called. I must 
hear what she has to say — and I should infinitely prefer 
hearing it in your presence. When I got your reply to 
my letter, permitting me to present her to you, I wrote 
to her immediately, appointing a meeting here.’ 

Lady Janet lifted her bright black eyes in mute ex- 
postulation to the carved cupids and wreaths on the 
dining-room ceiling. 

‘ When am I to have the honour of the lady’s visit ? ’ 
she enquired, with ironical resignation. 




A COUNCIL OF THREE 


107 

you should not decide hastily. Surely we ought to 
hear what this lady has to say?’ 

Horace dissented widely from his friend’s opinion. 
* It’s an insult to Grace,’ he broke out warmly, ‘ to hear 
what she has to say!’ 

Lady Janet nodded her head in high approval. ‘I 
think so, too,’ said her ladyship, crossing her handsome 
old hands resolutely on her lap. 

Julian applied himself to answering Horace first. 

‘Pardon me,’ he said, ‘I have no intention of pre- 
suming to reflect on Miss Roseberry, or of bringing her 
into the matter at all. The consul’s letter,’ he went on, 
speaking to his aunt, ‘mentions, if you remember, that 
the medical authorities of Mannheim were divided in 
opinion on their patient’s case. Some of them — the 
physician-in-chief being among the number — believe 
that the recovery of her mind has not accompanied the 
recovery of her body.’ 

‘In other words,’ Lady Janet remarked, ‘a mad- 
woman is in my house, and I am expected to receive 
her!’ 

‘Don’t let us exaggerate,’ said Julian gently. ‘It 
can serve no good interest, in this serious matter, to 
exaggerate anything. The consul assures us, on the 
authority of the doctor, that she is perfectly gentle and 
harmless. If she is really the victim of a mental delu- 
sion, the poor creature is surely an object of com- 
passion, and she ought to be placed under proper care. 
Ask your own kind heart, my dear aunt, if it would not 
be downright cruelty to turn this forlorn woman adrift 
in the world without making some enquiry first?’ 

Lady Janet’s inbred sense of justice admitted — not 
over-willingly — the reasonableness as well as the hu- 
manity of the view expressed in those words. ‘There 




THE DEAD ALIVE 


109 

‘In that case/ retorted Lady Janet, ‘remain here be- 
cause I wish it.’ 

‘ Certainly — if you wish it. Only remember,’ he 
added, more obstinately than ever, ‘that I differ en- 
tirely from Julian’s view. In my opinion the woman 
has no claim on us.’ 

A passing movement of irritation escaped Julian for 
the first time. ‘ Don’t be hard, Horace,’ he said sharply. 
‘All women have a claim on us.’ 

They had unconsciously gathered together, in the 
heat of the little debate, turning their backs on the 
library door. At the last words of the reproof ad- 
ministered by Julian to Horace, their attention was 
recalled to passing events by the slight noise produced 
by the opening and closing of the door. With one 
accord, the three turned and looked in the direction 
from which the sound had come. 


CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH 

THE DEAD ALIVE 

Just inside the door there appeared the figure of a 
small woman dressed in plain and poor black garments. 
She silently lifted her black net veil, and disclosed a 
dull, pale, worn, weary face. The forehead was low 
and broad; the eyes were unusually far apart; the 
lower features were remarkably small and delicate. In 
health (as the consul at Mannheim had remarked) this 
woman must have possessed, if not absolute beauty, at 
least rare attractions peculiarly her own. As it was 
now, suffering — sullen, silent, self-contained suffering — 
had marred its beauty. Attention, and even curiosity 




THE DEAD ALIVE 


III 


of the true Grace Roseberry within the doors of Mable- 
thorpe House. Lady Janet felt suddenly repelled, 
without knowing why. Julian and Horace felt sud- 
denly repelled, without knowing why. Asked to de- 
scribe their own sensations at the moment, they would 
have shaken their heads in despair, and would have 
answered in those words. The vague presentiment of 
some misfortune to come had entered the room with 
the entrance of the woman in black. But it moved in- 
visibly; and it spoke, as all presentiments speak, in the 
Unknown Tongue. 

A moment passed. The crackling of the fire and the 
ticking of the clock were the only sounds audible in the 
room. 

The voice of the visitor — hard, clear, and quiet — was 
the first voice that broke the silence. 

‘Mr. Julian Gray?’ she said, looking interrogatively 
from one of the two gentlemen to the other. 

Julian advanced a few steps, instantly recovering his 
self-possession. ‘I am sorry I was not at home,’ he 
said, ‘ when you called with your letter from the consul. 
Pray take a chair.’ 

By way of setting the example. Lady Janet seated 
herself at some little distance, with Horace in attend- 
ance standing near. She bowed to the stranger with 
studious politeness, but without uttering a word, before 
she settled herself in her chair. ‘ I am obliged to listen 
to this person,’ thought the old lady. ‘But I am not 
obliged to speak to her. That is Julian’s business — 
not mine.’ ‘ Don’t stand, Horace ! You fidget me. Sit 
down.’ Armed beforehand in her policy of silence. Lady 
Janet folded her handsome hands as usual, and waited 
for the proceedings to begin, like a judge on the bench. 




THE DEAD ALIVE 


113 

knew your name. I ask you, in return, which name it 
is? The name on your card is “Miss Roseberry.” 
The name marked on your clothes, when you were in 
the hospital, was “Mercy Merrick.”’ 

The self-possession which Grace had maintained 
from the moment when she had entered the dining- 
room seemed now for the first time to be on the point 
of failing her. She turned and looked appealingly at 
Julian, who had thus far kept his place apart, listening 
attentively. 

‘Surely,’ she said, ‘your friend, the consul, has told 
you in his letter about the mark on the clothes?’ 

Something of the girlish hesitation and timidity which 
had marked her demeanour at her interview with Mercy 
in the French cottage reappeared in her tone and man- 
ner as she spoke those words. The changes — mostly 
changes for the worse — wrought in her by the suffering 
through which she had passed since that time, were 
now (for the moment) effaced. All that was left of the 
better and simpler side of her character asserted itself 
in her brief appeal to Julian. She had hitherto repelled 
him. He began to feel a certain compassionate interest 
in her now. 

‘The consul has informed me of what you said to 
him,’ he answered kindly. ‘But, if you will take my 
advice, I recommend you to tell your story to Lady 
Janet in your own words.’ 

Grace again addressed herself with submissive re- 
luctance to Lady Janet. 

‘The clothes your ladyship speaks of,’ she said, ‘were 
the clothes of another woman. The rain was pouring 
when the soldiers detained me on the frontier. I had 
been exposed for hours to the weather — I was wet to 
the skin. The clothes marked “Mercy Merrick” were 




THE DEAD ALIVE 


115 

Julian kept his temper perfectly. ‘Pardon me,’ he 
rejoined, ‘you forget that you and Lady Janet meet 
now for the first time. Try to put yourself in my aunt’s 
place. How is she to know that you are the late Colonel 
Roseberry’s daughter?’ 

Grace’s head sank on her breast; she dropped into 
the nearest chair. The expression of her face changed 
instantly from anger to discouragement. ‘Ah,’ she 
exclaimed bitterly, ‘if I only had the letters that have 
been stolen from me!’ 

‘Letters,’ asked Julian, ‘introducing you to Lady 
Janet?’ 

‘Yes.’ She turned suddenly to Lady Janet. ‘Let 
me tell you how I lost them,’ she said, in the first tones, 
of entreaty which had escaped her yet. 

Lady Janet hesitated. It was not in her generous 
nature to resist the appeal that had just been made to 
her. The sympathies of Horace were far less easily 
reached. He lightly launched a new shaft of satire — 
intended for the private amusement of Lady Janet. 
‘Another explanation!’ he exclaimed, with a sigh of 
comic resignation. 

Julian overheard the words. His large lustrous eyes 
fixed themselves on Horace with a look of unmeasured 
contempt. 

‘The least you can do,’ he said, sternly, ‘is not to 
irritate her. It is so easy to irritate her!’ He ad- 
dressed himself again to Grace, endeavouring to help 
her through her difficulty in a new way. ‘Never mind 
explaining yourself for the moment,’ he said. ‘In the 
absence of your letters, have you anyone in London 
who can speak to your identity?’ 

Grace shook her head sadly. ‘I have no friends in 
London,’ she answered. 




THE DEAD ALIVE 


117 

introduction about me. She confessed to my face that 
she had been a bad woman — she had been in a prison — 
she had come out of a Refuge ’ 

Julian stopped her there with one plain question, 
which threw a doubt on the whole story. 

‘The consul tells me you asked him to search for 
Mercy Merrick,’ he said. ‘ Is it not true that he caused 
enquiries to be made, and that no trace of any such 
person was to be heard of?’ 

‘The consul took no pains to find her,’ Grace an- 
swered angrily. ‘He was, like everybody else, in a 
conspiracy to neglect and misjudge me.’ 

Lady Janet and Horace exchanged looks. This time 
it was impossible for Julian to blame them. The 
farther the stranger’s narrative advanced, the less 
worthy of serious attention he felt it to be. The longer 
she spoke, the more disadvantageous^ she challenged 
comparison with the absent woman, whose name she so 
obstinately and so audaciously persisted in assuming 
as her own. 

‘Granting all that you have said,’ Julian resumed, 
with a last effort of patience, ‘what use could Mercy 
Merrick make of your letters and your clothes?’ 

‘ What use ? ’ repeated Grace, amazed at his not see- 
ing the position as she saw it. ‘My clothes were 
marked with my name. One of my papers was a let- 
ter from my father, introducing me to Lady Janet. A 
woman out of a Refuge would be quite capable of pre- 
senting herself here in my place.’ 

Spoken entirely at random, spoken without so much 
as a fragment of evidence to support them, those last 
words still had their effect. They cast a reflection on 
Lady Janet’s adopted daughter which was too out- 
rageous to be borne. Lady Janet rose instantly. ‘ Give 



THE DEAD ALIVE 


119 

was leaving the room, with Horace, by way of the con- 
servatory. With a last desperate effort of resolution, 
Grace sprang forward, and placed herself in front of 
them. 

‘One word. Lady Janet, before you turn your back 
on me,’ she said, firmly. ‘ One word, and I will be con- 
tent. Has Colonel Roseberry’s letter found its way to 
this house or not? If it has, did a woman bring it to 
you?’ 

Lady Janet looked — as only a great lady can look 
when a person of inferior rank has presumed to fail in 
respect towards her. 

‘You are surely not aware,’ she said with icy com- 
posure, ‘that these questions are an insult to Me?’ 

‘And worse than an insult,’ Horace added warmly, 
‘to Grace!’ 

The little resolute black figure (still barring the way 
to the conservatory) was suddenly shaken from head 
to foot. The woman’s eyes travelled backwards and 
forwards between Lady Janet and Horace with the light 
of a new suspicion in them. 

‘Grace!’ she exclaimed. ‘What Grace? That’s my 
name. Lady Janet, you have got the letter! The 
woman is here!’ 

Lady Janet dropped Horace’s arm, and retraced her 
steps to the place at which her nephew was stand- 
ing. 

‘Julian,’ she said. ‘You force me for the first time 
in my life to remind you of the respect that is due to me 
in my own house. Send that woman away.’ 

Without waiting to be answered, she turned back 
again, and once more took Horace’s arm. 

‘Stand back, if you please,’ she said quietly to Grace. 

Grace held her ground. 



EXIT JULIAN I2I 

the living gaze of the woman whose identity she had 
stolen, whose body she had left laid out for dead. On 
the instant of that terrible discovery — with her eyes 
fixed helplessly on the fierce eyes that had found her — 
she dropped senseless on the floor. 


CHAPTER THE TWELFTH 

Exit JULIAN 

Julian happened to be standing nearest to Mercy. 
He was the first at her side when she fell. 

In the cry of alarm which burst from him, as he 
raised her for a moment in his arms, in the expression 
of his eyes when he looked at her death-like face, there 
escaped the plain — too plain — confession of the interest 
which he felt in her, of the admiration which she had 
aroused in him. Horace detected it. There was the 
quick suspicion of jealousy in the movement by which 
he joined Julian; there was the ready resentment of 
jealousy in the tone in which he pronounced the words,. 
‘Leave her to me.’ Julian resigned her in silence. A 
faint flush appeared on his pale face as he drew back 
while Horace carried her to the sofa. His eyes sank to 
the ground; he seemed to be meditating self-reproach- 
fully on the tone in which his friend had spoken to him. 
After having been the first to take an active part in 
meeting the calamity that had happened, he was now 
to all appearance insensible to everything that was pass- 
ing in the room. 

A touch on his shoulder roused him. 

He turned and looked round. The woman who had 
done the mischief— the stranger in the poor black gar- 




EXIT JULIAN 123 

she waited, dumbly obedient to the firmer will than her 
own. Julian withdrew to the library, leading Grace 
after him by the hand. Before closing the door he 
paused, and looked back into the dining-room. 

‘ Is she recovering ? ’ he asked, after a moment’s hesi- 
tation. 

Lady Janet’s voice answered him. ‘Not yet.’ 

‘Shall I send for the nearest doctor?’ 

Horace interposed. He declined to let Julian asso- 
ciate himself, even in that indirect manner, with Mercy’s 
recovery. 

‘ If the doctor is wanted,’ he said, ‘ I will go for him 
myself.’ 

Julian closed the library door. He absently released 
Grace; he mechanically pointed to a chair. She sat 
down in silent surprise, following him with her eyes as 
he walked slowly to and fro in the room. 

For the moment his mind was far away from her, 
and from all that had happened since her appearance in 
the house. It was impossible that a man of his fineness 
of perception could mistake the meaning of Horace’s 
conduct towards him. He was questioning his own 
heart, on the subject of Mercy, sternly and unreservedly, 
as it was his habit to do. ‘After only once seeing her,’ 
he thought, ‘has she produced such an impression on 
me that Horace can discover it, before I have even sus- 
pected it myself? Can the time have come already, 
when I owe it to my friend to see her no more?’ He 
stopped irritably in his walk. As a man devoted to a 
serious calling in life, there was something that wounded 
his self-respect in the bare suspicion that he coud be 
guilty of the purely sentimental extravagance called 
‘love at first sight.’ 

He had paused exactly opposite to the chair in which 



EXIT JULIAN 125 

fainted on first seeing you. I have something to tell you 
which will alter your opinion. On her arrival in Eng- 
land this lady informed my aunt that she had met with 
you accidentally on the French frontier, and that she had 
seen you (so far as she knew) struck dead at her side 
by a shell. Remember that, and recall what happened 
just now. Without a word to warn her of your restora- 
tion to life, she finds herself suddenly face to face with 
you, a living woman — and this at a time when it is easy 
for anyone who looks at her to see that she is in delicate 
health. What is there wonderful, what is there unac- 
countable, in her fainting under such circumstances as 
these ? ’ 

The question was plainly put. Where was the an- 
swer to it? 

There was no answer to it. Mercy’s wisely candid 
statement of the manner in which she had first met 
with Grace, and of the accident which had followed, 
had served Mercy’s purpose but too well. It was sim- 
ply impossible for persons acquainted with that state- 
ment to attach a guilty meaning to the swoon. The 
false Grace Roseberry was still as far beyond the reach 
of suspicion as ever; and the true Grace was quick 
enough to see it. She sank into the chair from which 
she had risen; her hands fell in hopeless despair on her 
lap. 

‘Everything is against me,’ she said. ‘The truth 
itself turns liar, and takes her side.’ She paused and 
rallied her sinking courage. ‘ No ! ’ she cried resolutely, 
‘I won’t submit to have my name and my place taken 
from me by a vile adventuress! Say what you like, I 
insist on exposing her; I won’t leave the house!’ 

The servant entered the room, and announced that 
the cab was at the door. 



EXIT JULIAN 127 

‘If you wish to remain under my charge/ Julian pro- 
ceeded, ‘you will accompany me at once to the cab. 
In that case I will undertake to give you an opportunity 
of telling your story to my own lawyer. He will be a 
fitter person to advise you than I am. Nothing will 
induce me to believe that the lady whom you have 
accused has committed, or is capable of committing, 
such a fraud as you charge her with. You will hear 
what the lawyer thinks, if you come with me. If you 
fefuse, I shall have no choice but to send into the next 
room and tell them that you are still here. The result 
will be that you will find yourself in charge of the police. 
Take which course you like; I will give you a minute 
to decide in. And remember this, if I appear to ex- 
press myself harshly, it is your conduct which forces me 
to speak out. I mean kindly towards you; I am ad- 
vising you honestly for your good.’ 

He took out his watch to count the minute. 

Grace stole one furtive glance at his steady resolute 
face. She was perfectly unmoved by the manly con- 
sideration for her which Julian’s last words had ex- 
pressed. All she understood was, that he was not a 
man to be trifled with. Future opportunities would 
offer themselves of returning secretly to the house. 
She determined to yield — and deceive him. 

‘ I am ready to go,’ she said, rising with dogged sub- 
mission. ‘Your turn now,’ she muttered to herself as 
she turned to the looking glass to arrange her shawl. 
‘My turn will come.’ 

Julian advanced towards her, as if to offer her his 
arm, and checked himself. Firmly persuaded as he was 
that her mind was deranged — readily as he admitted 
that she claimed, in virtue of her affliction, every in- 
dulgence that he could extend to her — there was some- 



129 


EXIT JULIAN 

Her mind remained in a condition of unreasoning 
alarm which it was impossible to remove. Over and 
over again she was told that the woman who had terri- 
fied her had left the house, and would never be per- 
mitted to enter it more. Over and over again she was 
assured that the stranger’s frantic assertions were re- 
garded by everybody about her as unworthy of a mo- 
ment’s serious attention. She persisted in doubting 
whether they were telling her the truth. A shocking 
distrust of her friends seemed to possess her. She 
shrank when Lady Janet approached the bedside. She 
shuddered when Lady Janet kissed her. She flatly 
refused to let Horace see her. She asked the strangest 
questions about Julian Gray, and shook her head sus- 
piciously when they told her that he was absent from the 
house. At intervals, she hid her face in the bedclothes, 
and murmured to herself piteously, ‘Oh! what shall I 
do ? What shall I do ? ’ At other times, her one peti- 
tion was to be left alone. ‘I want nobody in my room’ 
— that was her sullen cry — ‘Nobody in my room!’ 

The evening advanced, and brought with it no change 
for the better. Lady Janet, by the advice of Horace, 
sent for her own medical adviser. 

The doctor shook his head. The symptoms, he said, 
indicated a serious shock to the nervous system. He 
wrote a sedative prescription; and he gave (with a 
happy choice of language) some sound and safe advice. 
It amounted briefly to this: ‘Take her away, and try 
the sea-side.’ Lady Janet’s customary energy acted on 
the advice without a moment’s needless delay. She 
gave the necessary directions for packing the trunks over 
night, and decided on leaving Mabelthorpe House with 
Mercy the next morning. 

Shortly after the doctor had taken his departure, a 




EXIT JULIAN 131 

‘“After careful examination of the unfortunate crea- 
ture, he thinks that there are unmistakably symptoms 
of mental aberration, but how far the mischief has gone, 
and whether her case is, or is not, sufficiently grave to 
render actual restraint necessary, he cannot positively 
say in our present state of ignorance at to facts. 

‘“Thus far,” he observed, “we know nothing of 
that part of her delusion which relates to Mercy Mer- 
rick. The solution of the difficulty, in this case, is to 
be found there. I entirely agree with the lady that the 
enquiries of the consul at Mannheim are far from being 
conclusive. Furnish me with satisfactory evidence 
either that there is, or is not, such a person really in 
existence as Mercy Merrick, and I will give you a positive 
opinion on the case, whenever you choose to ask for it.” 

‘Those words have decided me on starting for the 
Continent, and renewing the search for the missing 
nurse. 

‘My friend the lawyer wonders jocosely whether I 
am in my right senses. His advice is, that I should 
apply to the nearest magistrate, and relieve you and 
myself of all further trouble in that way. 

‘Perhaps you agree with him? My dear aunt (as 
you have often said), I do nothing like other people. 
I am interested in this case. I cannot abandon a for- 
lorn woman who has been confided to me to the tender 
mercies of strangers, so long as there is any hope of my 
making discoveries which may be instrumental in re- 
storing her to herself — perhaps, also, in restoring her 
to her friends. 

‘I start by the mail train of to-night. My plan is to 
go first to Mannheim, and consult with the consul and 
the hospital doctors; then to find my way to the Ger- 
man surgeon, and to question him; and, that done, to 




ENTER JULIAN 133 

left was to wait patiently for Julian’s return, and, in her 
own favourite phrase, to ‘ have it out with him ’ then. 

The next morning. Lady Janet and her adopted 
daughter left Mablethorpe House for Brighton; Horace 
(who had begged to be allowed to accompany them) 
being sentenced to remain in London by Mercy’s ex- 
press desire. Why — nobody could guess; and Mercy 
refused to say. 


CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH 

ENTER JULIAN 

A week has passed. The scene opens again in the 
dining-room at Mablethorpe House. 

The hospitable table bears once more its burden of 
good things for lunch. But, on this occasion, Lady 
Janet sits alone. Her attention is divided between 
reading her newspaper and feeding her cat. The cat 
is a sleek and splendid creature. He carries an erect 
tail. He rolls luxuriously on the soft carpet. He ap- 
proaches his mistress in a series of coquettish curves. 
He smells with dainty hesitation at the choicest morsels 
that can be offered to him. The musical monotony of 
his purring falls soothingly on her ladyship’s ear. She 
stops in the middle of a leading article, and looks with 
a careworn face at the happy cat. ‘ Upon my honour,’ 
cries Lady Janet, thinking, in her inveterately ironical 
manner, of the cares that trouble her, ‘all things con- 
sidered, Tom, I wish I was You!’ 

The cat starts — not at his mistress’s complimentary 
apostrophe, but at a knock at the door which follows 
close upon it. Lady Janet says, carelessly enough, 




ENTER JULIAN 135 

‘My dear aunt, when I was the innocent means of 
bringing her here I had no idea that such a person as 
Miss Roseberry was in existence. Nobody laments 
what has happened more sincerely than I do. Have 
you had medical advice?’ 

‘I took her to the seaside a week since, by medical 
advice.’ 

‘Has the change of air done her no good?’ 

‘ None whatever. If anything, the change of air has 
made her worse. Sometimes she sits for hours to- 
gether, as pale as death, without looking at anything, 
and without uttering a word. Sometimes she brightens 
up, and seems as if she was eager to say something — 
and then. Heaven only knows why, checks herself sud- 
denly as if she was afraid to speak. I could support 
that. But what cuts me to the heart, Julian, is that 
she does not appear to trust me and to love me as she 
did. She seems to be doubtful of me; she seems to be 
frightened of me. If I did not know that it was simply 
impossible that such a thing could be, I should really 
think she suspected me of believing what that wretch 
said of her. In one word (and between ourselves), I 
begin to fear that she will never get over the fright which 
caused that fainting fit. There is serious mischief some- 
where — and try as I may to discover it, it is mischief 
beyond my finding.’ 

‘Can the doctor do nothing?’ 

Lady Janet’s bright black eyes answered, before she 
replied in words, with a look of supreme contempt. 

‘The doctor!’ she repeated disdainfully. ‘I brought 
Grace back last night in sheer despair, and I sent for 
the doctor this morning. He is at the head of his pro- 
fession; he is said to be making ten thousand a year — 
and he knows no more about it than I do. I am quite 



ENTER JULIAN 137 

under an engagement to stay here as my guest. An- 
swer me honestly once more. Why did you go away ? * 

Julian hesitated. Lady Janet paused for his reply, 
with the air of a woman who was prepared to wait (if 
necessary) for the rest of the afternoon. 

‘I had a reason of my own for going, ^ Julian said at 
last. 

‘Yes?’ rejoined Lady Janet, prepared to wait (if 
necessary) till the next morning. 

‘A reason,’ Julian resumed, ‘which I would rather 
not mention.’ 

‘Oh!’ said Lady Janet. ‘Another mystery — eh? 
And another woman at the bottom of it, no doubt? 
Thank you- — that will do — I am sufficiently answered. 
No wonder — as a clergyman — that you look a little 
confused. There is perhaps a certain grace, under the 
circumstances, in looking confused. We will change 
the subject again. You stay here, of course, now you 
have come back?’ 

Once more the famous pulpit orator seemed to find 
himself in the inconceivable predicament of not know- 
ing what to say. Once more Lady Janet looked re- 
signed to wait — (if necessary) until the middle of next 
week. 

Julian took refuge in an answer worthy of the most 
commonplace man on the face of the civilised earth. 

‘I beg your ladyship to accept my thanks and my 
excuses,’ he said. 

Lady Janet’s many-ringed fingers, mechanically 
stroking the cat in her lap, began to stroke him the 
wrong way. Lady Janet’s inexhaustible patience 
showed signs of failing her at last. 

‘Mighty civil, I am sure,’ she said. ‘Make it com- 
plete. Say, Mr. Julian Gray presents his compliments 



ENTER JULIAN 139 

realise it to myself. No other woman has ever roused 
the feeling in me which this woman seems to have called 
to life in an instant. In the hope of forgetting her I 
broke my engagement here; I purposely seized the 
opportunity of making those enquiries abroad. Quite 
useless. I think of her morning, noon, and night. I 
see her and hear her, at this moment, as plainly as I see 
and hear You. She has made her-stli a part of my- 
self. I don’t understand my life without her. My 
power of will seems to be gone. I said to myself this 
morning, “I will write to my aunt; I won’t go back to 
Mablethorpe House.” Here I am in Mablethorpe 
House, with a mean subterfuge to justify me to my own 
conscience. “I owe it to my aunt to call on my aunt.” 
That is what I said to myself on the way here; and I 
was secretly hoping every step of the way that She would 
come into the room when I got here. I am hoping it 
now. And she is engaged to Horace Holmcroft — to my 
oldest friend, to my best friend! Am I an infernal 
rascal? or am I a weak fool? God knows — I don’t. 
Keep my secret, aunt. I am heartily ashamed of my- 
self: I used to think I was made of better stuff than 
this. Don’t say a word to Horace.' I must, and will, 
conquer it. Let me go.’ 

He snatched up his hat. Lady Janet, rising with 
the activity of a young woman, pursued him across the 
room, and stopped him at the door. 

‘No,’ answered the resolute old lady, ‘I won’t let 
you go. Come back with me.’ 

As she said those words she noticed with a certain 
fond pride the brilliant colour mounting in his cheeks 
— the flashing brightness which lent an added lustre to 
his eyes. He had never, to her mind, look-ed so hand- 
some before. She took his arm, and led him to the 



ENTER JULIAN 141 

Julian bowed, and settled himself in his chair. 

‘ I don’t much like to acknowledge it,’ his aunt went 
on. ‘ But I want you to understand that I have some- 
thing really serious to speak about, for once in a way. 
Julian! that wretch not only frightens Grace — she actu- 
ally frightens Me.’ 

^Frightens you? She is quite harmless, poor thing.’ 

‘“Poor thing!” repeated Lady Janet. ‘Did you say 
“poor thing” ?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Is it possible that you pity her?’ 

‘From the bottom of my heart.’ 

The old lady’s temper gave way again at that reply. 
‘I hate a man who can’t hate anybody!’ she burst out. 
‘If you had been an ancient Roman, Julian, I believe 
you would have pitied Nero himself.’ 

Julian cordially agreed with her. ‘ I believe I should,’ 
he said quietly. ‘All sinners, my dear aunt, are more 
or less miserable sinners. Nero must have been one 
of the wretchedest of mankind.’ 

‘ Wretched ! ’ exclaimed Lady Janet. ‘ Nero wretched ! 
A man who committed robbery, arson, and murder, to 
his own violin accompaniment — only wretched! What 
next, I wonder? When modern philanthropy begins 
to apologise for Nero, modern philanthropy has arrived 
at a pretty pass indeed! We shall hear next that 
Bloody Queen Mary was as playful as a kitten; and if 
poor dear Henry the Eighth carried anything to an 
extreme, it was the practise of the domestic virtues. 
Ah, how I hate cant! What were we talking about just 
now? You wander from the subject, Julian; you are 
what I call bird-witted. I protest I forget what I 
wanted to say to you. No, I won’t be reminded of it. 
I may be an old woman, but I am not in my dotage 




COMING EVENTS 


143 

covered — mad. That is a remarkable admission; don^t 
you think so?’ 

Lady Janet’s temper had hardly been allowed time 
enough to subside to its customary level. 

‘Very remarkable, I dare say,’ she answered, ‘to 
people who feel any doubt of this pitiable lady of yours 
being mad. I feel no doubt — and, thus far, I find your 
account of yourself, Julian, tiresome in the extreme. 
Get on to the end. Did you lay your hand on Mercy 
Merrick ? ’ 

‘No.’ 

‘ Did you hear anything of her ? ’ 

‘ Nothing. Difficulties beset me on every side. The 
French ambulance had shared in the disasters of France 
— it was broken up. The wounded Frenchmen were 
prisoners, somewhere in Germany, nobody knew where. 
The French surgeon had been killed in actio;i. His 
assistants were scattered — most likely in hiding. I 
began to despair of making any discovery, when acci- 
dent threw in my way two Prussian soldiers who had 
been in the French cottage. They confirmed what the 
German surgeon told the consul, and what Horace 
himself told me^ namely, that no nurse in a black dress 
was to be seen in the place. If there had been such a 
person, she would certainly (the Prussians informed me) 
have been found in attendance on the injured French- 
men. The cross of the Geneva Convention would have 
been amply sufficient to protect her: no woman wear- 
ing that badge of honour would have disgraced herself 
by abandoning the wounded men before the Germans 
entered the place.’ 

‘In short,’ interposed Lady Janet, ‘there is no such 
person as Mercy Merrick?’ 

‘I can draw no other conclusion,’ said Julian, ‘unkss 



COMING EVENTS 


145 

duced a strong impression on her, in the first place. I 
dare say all sorts of inquisitive questions followed; and 
Grace rashly talked of matters which an older and 
wiser person would have kept to herself.’ 

‘Very good. Do you also agree that the last idea in 
the woman’s mind when she was struck by the shell 
might have been (quite probably) the idea of Miss Rose- 
berry’s identity and Miss Roseberry’s affairs? You 
think it likely enough? Well! What happens after 
that? The wounded woman is brought to life by an 
operation, and she becomes delirious in the hospital at 
Mannheim. During her delirium the idea of Miss 
Roseberry’s identity ferments in her brain, and assumes 
its present perverted form. In that form it still remains. 
As a necessary consequence, she persists in reversing 
the two identities. She says she is Miss Roseberry, and 
declares Miss Roseberry to be Mercy Merrick. There 
is the doctor’s view of the matter. As I think, it not 
only answers your question — it also explains the woman’s 
angry repudiation of the name marked on her clothes 
(the name of Mercy Merrick) when she was received at 
the hospital. Do you agree with me?’ 

‘I hardly know, Julian, whether I agree with you or 
not. Confusion of their own identity with the identity 
of others is common enough among mad people, I 
admit. Still, the doctor doesn’t quite satisfy me. I 
think ’ 

What Lady Janet thought was not destined to be 
expressed. She suddenly checked herself, and held up 
her hand for the second time. 

‘Another objection?’ enquired Julian. 

‘Hold your tongue!’ cried the old lady. ‘If you say 
a word more I shall lose it again.’ 

‘Lose what, aunt?’ 



COMING EVENTS 


147 

from the poor deluded creature,’ Julian went on. 
have gained great influence over her, and I have satisfied 
her that it is useless to present herself herfe again.’ 

‘I beg your pardon,’ interposed Horace, speaking 
from the conservatory door. ‘You have done nothing 
of the sort.’ 

(He had heard enough to satisfy him that the talk 
was not taking the direction which his suspicions had 
anticipated. And as an additional incentive to show 
himself, a happy chance had now offered him the op- 
portunity of putting Julian in the wrong.) 

‘Good heavens, Horace!’ exclaimed Lady Janet, 
‘ where do you come from ? And what do you mean ? ’ 

‘I heard at the lodge that your ladyship and Grace 
had returned last night. And I came in at once, with- 
out troubling the servants, by the shortest way.’ He 
turned to Julian next. ‘ The 'woman you were speaking 
of just now,’ he proceeded, ‘has been here again already 
— in Lady Janet’s absence.’ 

Lady Janet immediately looked at her nephew. 
Julian reassured her by a gesture. 

‘Impossible,’ he said. ‘There must be some mis- 
take.’ 

‘There is no mistake,’ Horace rejoined. ‘I am re- 
peating what I have just heard from the lodge-keeper 
himself. He hesitated to mention it to Lady Janet for 
fear of alarming her. Only three days since, this per- 
son had the audacity to ask him for her ladyship’s 
address at the seaside. Of course he refused to give it’ 

‘You hear that, Julian?’ said Lady Janet. 

No signs of anger or mortification escaped Julian. 
The expression in his face at that moment was an ex- 
pression of sincere distress. 

‘Pray don’t alarm yourself,’ he said to his aunt, in 



COMING EVENTS 


1,49 


that she is not to be trusted. It was at their suggestion 
entirely that I went to the magistrate. They put it to 
me whether the result of my enquiries abroad — un- 
satisfactory as it may have been in other respects — did 
not strengthen the conclusion that the poor woman’s 
mind is deranged. I felt compelled in common honesty 
to admit that it was so. Having owned this, I was 
bound to take such precautions as the lawyer and the 
doctor thought necessary. I have done my duty — 
sorely against my own will. It is weak of me, I daresay 
— but I can not bear the thought of treating this afflicted 
creature harshly. Her delusion is so hopeless! her 
situation is such a pitiable one!’ 

His voice faltered. He turned away abruptly and 
took up his hat. Lady Janet followed him, and spoke 
to him at the door. Horace smiled satirically, and 
went to warm himself at the fire. 

‘Are you going away, Julian?’ 

‘ I am only going to the lodge-keeper. I want to give 
him a word of warning in case of his seeing her again.’ 

‘You will come back here?’ (Lady Janet lowered 
her voice to a whisper.) ‘There is really a reason, 
Julian, for you not leaving the house now.’ 

‘I promise not to go away, aunt, until I have pro- 
vided for your security. If you, or your adopted 
daughter, are alarmed by another intrusion, I give you 
my word of honour my card shall go to the police- 
station — however panifully I may feel it myself.’ (He, 
too, lowered his voice at the next words.) ‘ In the mean- 
time, remember what I confessed to you while we were 
alone! For my sake, let me see as little of Miss Rose- 
berry as possible. Shall I find you in this room when I 
come back?’ 

‘Yes.’ 




A WOMAN’S REMORSE 


151 

possessed of health and an independent income — who 
is capable of understanding that irony can be pre- 
sumptuous enough to .address itself to him? Horace 
(with perfect politeness) declined to consider himself 
answered. 

‘ Does your ladyship mean that Miss Roseberry is in 
bed?’ he asked. 

‘ I mean that Miss Roseberry is in her room. I mean 
that I have twice tried to persuade Miss Roseberry to 
dress and come downstairs — and tried in vain. I mean 
that what Miss Roseberry refuses to do for Me, she is 
not likely to do for You ’ 

How many more meanings of her own Lady Janet 
might have gone on enumerating, it is not easy to cal- 
culate. At her third sentence, a sound in the library 
caught her ear through the incompletely-closed door, 
and suspended the next words on her lips. Horace 
heard it also. It was the rustling sound (travelling near- 
er and nearer over the library carpet) of a silken dress. 

(In the interval, while a coming event remains in a 
state of uncertainty, what is it the inevitable tendency 
of every Englishman under thirty to do ? His inevitable 
tendency is to ask somebody to bet on the event. He 
can no more resist it than he can resist lifting his stick 
or his umbrella, in the absence of a gun, and pretending 
to shoot if a bird flies by him while he is out for a walk.) 

‘ What will your ladyship bet that this is not Grace ? ’ 
cried Horace. 

Her ladyship took no notice of the proposal; her 
attention remained fixed on the library door. The 
rustling sound stopped for a moment. The door was 
softly pushed open. The false Grace Roseberry entered 
the room. 

Horace advanced to meet her, opened his lips to 



A WOMAN’S REMORSE 


153 

‘I saw a carriage at the front door. I was afraid of 
meeting with visitors in the drawing-room.’ 

As she made that reply, the servant came in, and 
announced the visitors’ names. Lady Janet sighed 
wearily. ‘I must go and get rid of them,’ she said, 
resigning herself to circumstances. ‘ What will you do, 
Grace?’ 

‘I will stay here, if you please.’ 

‘I will keep her company,’ added Horace. 

Lady Janet hesitated. She had promised to see her 
nephew in the dining-room on his return to the house — 
and to see him alone. Would there be time enough to 
get rid of the visitors, and to establish her adopted 
daughter in the empty drawing-room, before Julian 
appeared? It was a ten minutes’ walk to the lodge, 
and he had to make the gatekeeper understand his in- 
structions. Lady Janet decided that she had time 
enough at her disposal. She nodded kindly to Mercy, 
and left her alone with her lover. 

Horace seated himself in the vacant place on the 
sofa. So far as it was in his nature to devote himself 
to anyone, he was devoted to Mercy. H am grieved 
to see how you have suffered,’ he said, with honest 
distress in his face as he looked at her. ‘ Try to forget 
what has happened.’ 

‘ I am trying to forget. Do you think of it much ? ’ 

‘My darling, it is too contemptible to be thought 
of.’ 

She placed her work-basket on her lap. Her wasted 
fingers began absently sorting the wools inside. 

‘Have you seen Mr. Julian Gray?’ she asked sud- 
denly. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘What does he say about it?’ She looked at Horace 



A WOMAN’S REMORSE 


155 

know,’ she persisted. ‘How did Mr. Julian Gray be- 
come acquainted with her?’ 

This was easily answered. Horace mentioned the 
consul at Mannheim, and the letter of introduction. 
She listened eagerly, and said her next words in a louder, 
firmer tone. 

‘She was quite a stranger then, to Mr. Julian Gray, 
■ — before that?’ 

‘ Quite a stranger,’ Horace replied. ‘ No more ques- 
tions — not another word about her, Grace! I forbid 
the subject. Come, my own love!’ he said, taking her 
hand, and bending over her tenderly, ‘ rally your spirits ! 
We are young — we love each other — now* is our time to 
be happy!’ 

Her hand turned suddenly cold, and trembled in his. 
Her head sank with a helpless weariness on her breast. 
Horace rose in alarm. 

‘You are cold — you are faint,’ he said. ‘Let me get 
you a glass of wine! — let me mend the fire!’ 

The decanters were still on the luncheon-table. 
Horace insisted on her drinking some port wine. She 
barely took half the contents of the wine-glass. Even 
that little told on her sensitive organisation; it roused 
her sinking energies of body and mind. After watching 
her anxiously, without attracting her notice, Horace 
left her again to attend to the fire at the other end of 
the room. Her eyes followed him slowly with a hard 
and tearless despair. ‘ Rally your spirits ! ’ she repeated 
to herself in a whisper. ‘My spirits! Oh, God!' She 
looked round her at the luxury and beauty of the room, 
as those look who take their leave of familiar scenes. 
The moment after, her eyes sank, and rested on the rich 
dress that she wore — a gift from Lady Janet. She 
thought of the past; she thought of the future. Was 



A WOMAN’S REMORSE 


157 

The servant returned with a strip of embroidery. 
She took it with an insolent grace, and told him to 
bring her a footstool. The man obeyed. She tossed 
the embroidery away from her on the sofa. ‘ On second 
thoughts I don’t care about my work,’ she said. ‘Take 
it upstairs again.’ The perfectly-trained servant, mar- 
velling privately, obeyed once more. Horace, in silent 
astonishment, advanced to the sofa to observe her more 
nearly. ‘How grave you look!’ she exclaimed, with 
an air of flippant unconcern. ‘Yoii don’t approve of 
my sitting idle, perhaps? Anything to please you! I 
haven’t got to go up and down stairs. Ring the bell 
again.’ 

‘ My dear Grace,’ Horace remonstrated gravely, ‘ you 
are quite mistaken. I never even thought of your 
work.’ 

‘Never mind; it’s inconsistent to send for my work, 
and then send it away again. Ring the bell.’ 

Horace looked at her, without moving. ‘ Grace ! ’ 
he said, ‘what has come to you?’ 

‘ How should I know ? ’ she retorted carelessly. 
‘ Didn’t you tell me to rally my spirits ? Will you ring 
the bell? or must I?’ 

Horace submitted. He frowned as he walked back 
to the bell. He was one of the many people who in- 
stinctively resent anything that is new to them. This 
strange outbreak was quite new to him. For the first 
time in his life he felt sympathy for a servant, when the 
much-enduring man appeared once more. 

‘Bring my work back; I have changed my mind.’ 
With that brief explanation she reclined luxuriously on 
the soft sofa cushions; swinging one of her balls of 
wool to and fro above her head, and looking at it lazily 
as she lay back. ‘ I have a remark to make, Horace,’ 



A WOMAN’S REMORSE 15Q 

Horace laughed indulgently: his self-esteem was more 
gently flattered than ever. 

‘ Absurd ! ’ he exclaimed. ‘ My darling, you are con- 
nected with Lady Janet Roy. Your family is almost 
as good as ours.’ 

‘Almost?’ she repeated. ‘Only almost?’ 

The momentary levity of expression vanished from 
Horace’s face. The family-question was far too serious 
a question to be lightly treated. A becoming shadow 
of solemnity stole over his manner. He looked as if it 
was Sunday, and he was just stepping into church. 

‘In OUR family,’ he said, ‘we trace back — by my 
father, to the Saxons: by my mother, to the Normans. 
Lady Janet’s family is an old family — on her side only.’ 

Mercy dropped her embroidery, and looked Horace 
full in the face. She, too, attached no common im- 
portance to what she had next to say. 

‘If I had not been connected with Lady Janet,’ she 
began, ‘ would you ever have thought of marrying me ? ’ 

‘My love! what is the use of asking? You are con- 
nected with Lady Janet.’ 

She refused to let him escape answering her in that 
way. 

‘Suppose I had not been connected with Lady Janet,’ 
she persisted, ‘ suppose I had only been a good girl, with 
nothing but my own merits to speak for me. What 
would your mother have said, then?’ 

Horace still parried the question — only to find the 
point of it pressed home on him once more. 

‘Why do you ask?’ he said. 

‘I ask to be answered,’ she rejoined. ‘Would your 
mother have liked you to marry a poor girl, of no 
family— with nothing but her own virtues to speak for 
her?’ 



A WOMAN’S REMORSE 


i6i 


'You would have loved me, Horace— without stop- 
ping to think of the family name ? ’ 

The family name again! How strangely she per- 
sisted in coming back to that! Horace looked at her 
without answering; trying vainly to fathom what was 
passing in her mind. 

She took his hand and wrung it hard — as if she would 
wring the answer out of him in that way. 

‘ You would have loved me?’ she repeated. 

The double spell of her voice and her touch was on 
him. He answered warmly, ‘ Under any circumstances ! 
under any name!’ 

She put one arm round his neck, and fixed her eyes 
on his. ^ Is that true ? ’ she asked. 

^True as the heaven above us!’ 

She drank in those few commonplace words with a 
greedy delight. She forced him to repeat them in a 
new form. 

‘No matter who I might have been? For myself 
alone ? ’ 

‘For yourself alone.’ 

She threw both arms round him, and laid her head 
passionately on his breast. ‘I love you! I love you!! 
I love you ! ! ! ’ Her voice rose with hysterical vehemence 
at each repetition of the words — then suddenly sank to 
a low wailing cry of rage and despair. The sense of 
her true position towards him revealed itself in all its 
horror as the confession of her love escaped her lips. 
Her arms dropped from him; she flung herself back on 
the sofa cushions, hiding her face in her hands. ‘Oh, 
leave me!’ she moaned faintly, ‘Go! go!’ 

Horace tried to wind his arm round her, and raise her. 
She started to her feet, and waved him back from her 
with a wild action of her hands, as if she was frightened 



THEY MEET AGAIN 


163 

door. An interval of a moment passed, and the worn 
white face of Grace Roseberry showed itself stealthily, 
looking into the dining-room. 

Her eyes brightened with vindictive pleasure as they 
discovered Mercy sitting alone at the farther end of 
the room. Inch by inch she opened the door more 
widely, took one step forward, and checked herself. 
A sound, just audible at the far end of the conservatory, 
had caught her ear. 

She listened — satisfied herself that she was not mis- 
taken — and, drawing back with a frown of displeasure, 
softly closed the door again, so as to hide herself from 
view. The sound that had disturbed her was the dis- 
tant murmur of men’s voices (apparently two in num- 
ber) talking together in lowered tones, at the garden 
entrance to the conservatory. 

Who were the men? and what would they do next? 
They might do one of two things : they might enter the 
drawing-room, or they might withdraw again by way 
of the garden. Kneeling behind the door, with her ear 
at the keyhole, Grace Roseberry waited the event. 


CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH 

THEY MEET AGAIN 

Absorbed in herself, Mercy failed to notice the open- 
ing door or to hear the murmur of voices in the con- 
servatory. 

The one terrible necessity which had been present to 
her mind at intervals for a week past was confronting 
her at that moment. She owed to Grace Roseberry the 
tardy justice of owning the truth. The longer her con- 




THEY MEET AGAIN 


165 

stress laid on it, her mind had drifted little by little 
into a new train of thought. For the first time, she 
found the courage to question the future in a new way. 
Supposing her confession to have been made, or sup- 
posing the woman whom she had personated to have 
discovered the means of exposing the fraud, what ad- 
vantage, she now asked herself, would Miss Roseberry 
derive from Mercy Merrick’s disgrace? 

Could Lady Janet transfer to the woman who was 
really her relative by marriage the affection which she 
had given to the woman who had pretended to be her 
relative? No! All the right in the world would not 
put the true Grace into the false Grace’s vacant place. 
The qualities by which Mercy had won Lady Janet’s 
love were the qualities which were Mercy’s own. Lady 
Janet could do rigid justice — but hers was not the heart 
to give itself to a stranger (and to give itself unreservedly) 
a second time. Grace Roseberry would be formally 
acknowledged — and there it would end. 

Was there hope in this new view? 

Yes! There was the false hope of making the in- 
evitable atonement by some other means than by the 
confession of the fraud. 

What had Grace Roseberry actually lost by the 
wrong done to her? She had lost the salary of Lady 
Janet’s ‘companion and reader.’ Say that she wanted 
money, Mercy had her savings from the generous allow- 
ance made to her by Lady Janet; Mercy could offer 
money. Or say that she wanted employment, Mercy’s 
interest with Lady Janet could offer employment, could 
offer anything Grace might ask for, if she would only 
come to terms. 

Invigorated by the new hope, Mercy rose excitedly, 
weary of inaction in the empty room. She, who but a 



THEY MEET AGAIN 


167 

not here/ She turned, as she spoke, towards the con- 
servatory door, and confronted on the threshold Julian 
Gray. 

They looked at one another without exchanging a 
word on either side. The situation — for widely differ- 
ent reasons — was equally embarrassing to both of them. 

There — as Julian saw her — was the woman forbidden 
to him, the woman whom he loved. 

There — as Mercy saw him — was the man whom she 
dreaded; the man whose actions (as she interpreted 
them) proved that he suspected her. 

On the surface of it, the incidents which had marked 
their first meeting were now exactly repeated, with the 
one difference, that the impulse to withdraw this time 
appeared to be on the man’s side, and not on the 
woman’s. It was Mercy who spoke first. 

‘ Did you expect to find Lady Janet here ? ’ she asked, 
constrainedly. 

He answered, on his part, more constrainedly still. 

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Another time will do.’ 

He drew back as he made the reply. She advanced 
desperately, with the deliberate intention of detaining 
him by speaking again. 

The attempt which he had made to withdraw, the 
constraint in his manner when he had answered, had 
instantly confirmed her in the false conviction that he, 
and he alone, had guessed the truth! If she was right 
— if he had secretly made discoveries abroad which 
placed her entirely at his mercy — the attempt to induce 
Grace to consent to a compromise with her would be 
manifestly useless. Her first and foremost interest now 
was to find out how she really stood in the estimation of 
Julian Gray. In a terror of suspense that turned her 
cold from head to foot, she stopped him on his way out, 



THEY MEET AGAIN 


169 

silence followed. Never was any human misunder- 
standing more intricately complete than the misunder- 
standing which had now established itself between these 
two! 

Mercy’s work-basket was near her. She took it, and 
gained time for composing herself by pretending to 
arrange the coloured wools. He stood behind her chair, 
looking at the graceful turn of her head, looking at the 
rich masses of her hair. He reviled himself as the 
weakest of men, as the falsest of friends, for still remain- 
ing near her — and yet he remained. 

The silence continued. The billiard-room door 
opened again noiselessly. The face of the listening 
woman appeared stealthily behind it. 

At the same moment Mercy roused herself and spoke : 
‘Won’t you sit down?’ she said, softly; still not looking 
round at him; still busy with her basket of wools. 

He turned to get a chair — turned so quickly that he 
saw the billiard-room door move, as Grace Roseberry 
closed it again. 

‘Is there anyone in that room?’ he asked, addressing 
Mercy. 

‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘I thought I saw the 
door open and shut again a little while ago.’ 

He advanced at once to look into the room. As he 
did so, Mercy dropped one of her balls of wool. He 
stopped to pick it up for her— then threw open the door 
and looked into the billiard-room. It was empty. 

Had some person been listening, and had that person 
retreated in time to escape discovery ? The open door 
of the smoking-room showed that room also to be empty. 
A third door was open — the door of the side-hall, lead- 
ing into the grounds. After a moment’s consideration, 
Julian closed it, and returned to the dining-room. 



THE GUARDIAN ANGEL 171 

Mercy to wind. There was something in the trivial 
action, and in the homely attention that it implied, 
which in some degree quieted her fear of him. She 
began to roll the wool off his hands into a ball. Thus 
occupied, she said the daring words which were to lead 
him little by little into betraying his suspicions, if he 
did indeed suspect the truth. 


CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH 

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL 

‘ You were here when I fainted, were you not ? ’ Mercy 
began. ‘You must think me a sad coward, even for a 
woman.’ 

He shook his head. ‘I am far from thinking that,’ 
he replied. ‘No courage could have sustained the 
shock which fell on you. I don’t wonder that you 
fainted. I don’t wonder that you have been ill.’ 

She paused in rolling up the ball of wool. What did 
those words of unexpected sympathy mean? Was he 
laying a trap for her? Urged by that serious doubt, 
she questioned him more boldly. 

‘Horace tells me you have been abroad,’ she said. 
‘Did you enjoy your holiday?’ 

‘ It was no holiday. I went abroad because I thought 

it right to make certain enquiries’ He stopped 

there, unwilling to return to a subject that was painful 
to her. 

Her voice sank, her fingers trembled round the ball 
of wool — but she managed to go on. 

‘ Did you arrive at any results ? ’ she asked. 

‘At no results worth mentioning.’ 




THE GUARDIAN ANGEL 


173 


‘ Suspect you ! ’ he exclaimed. ‘ You don’t know how 
you distress, how you shock me. Suspect you ! The 
bare idea of it never entered my mind. The man 
doesn’t live who trusts you more implicitly, who be- 
lieves in you more devotedly than I do.’ 

His eyes, his voice, his manner, all told her that those 
words came from the heart. She contrasted his generous 
confidence in her (the confidence of which she was un- 
worthy) with her ungracious distrust of him. Not only 
had she wronged Grace Roseberry — she had wronged 
Julian Gray. Could she deceive him as she had de- 
ceived the others? Could she meanly accept that im- 
plicit trust, that devoted belief? Never had she felt 
the base submissions which her own imposture con- 
demned her to undergo with a loathing of them so 
overwhelming as the loathing that she felt now. In 
horror of herself, she turned her head aside in silence, 
and shrank from meeting his eye. He noticed the 
movement, placing his own interpretation on it. Ad- 
vancing closer, he asked anxiously if he had offended 
her? 

‘You don’t know how your confidence touches me,’ 
she said, without looking up. ‘You little think how 
keenly I feel your kindness.’ 

She checked herself abruptly. Her fine tact warned 
her that she was speaking too warmly — that the ex- 
pression of her gratitude might strike him as being 
strangely exaggerated. She handed him her work- 
basket, before he could speak again. 

‘Will you put it away for me?’ she asked in her 
quieter tones. ‘I don’t feel able to work just now.’ 

His back was turned on her for a moment, while he 
placed the basket on a side table. In that moment 
her mind advanced at a bound from present to future. 



THE GUARDIAN ANGEL 


175 

can believe he is better than another ? The best among 
us to-day may, but for the mercy of God, be the worst 
among us to-morrow. The true Christian virtue is the 
virtue which never despairs of a fellow-creature. The 
true Christian faith believes in Man as well as in God. 
Frail and fallen as we are, we can rise on the wings of 
repentance from earth to heaven. Humanity is sacred. 
Humanity has its immortal destiny. Who shall dare 
say to man or woman, “There is no hope in you”? 
Who shall dare say the work is all vile, when that work 
bears on it the stamp of the Creator’s hand ? ’ 

He turned away for a moment, struggling with the 
emotion which she had roused in him. 

Her eyes, as they followed him, lighted with a mo- 
mentary enthusiasm — then sank wearily in the vain 
regret which comes too late. Ah! if he could have been 
her friend and her adviser on the fatal day when she 
first turned her steps towards Mablethorpe House! 
She sighed bitterly as thejbopeless aspiration wrung 
her heart. He heard the sigh; and, turning again, 
looked at her with a new interest in his face. 

‘Miss Roseberry,’ he said. 

She was still absorbed in the bitter memories of the 
past: she failed to hear him. 

‘Miss Roseberry,’ he repeated, approaching her. 

She looked up at him with a start. 

‘ May I venture to ask you something ? ’ he said gently. 

She shrank at the question. 

‘Don’t suppose I am speaking out of mere curiosity,’' 
he went on. ‘And pray don’t answer me, unless you 
can answer without betraying any confidence which 
may have been placed in you.’ 

‘Confidence!’ she repeated. ‘What confidence do 
you mean?’ 



THE GUARDIAN ANGEL 


177 

‘Tell me/ he went on, ‘is the person whom she has 
injured still living?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘If the person is still living, she may atone for the 
wrong. The time may come when this sinner, too, 
may win our pardon and deserve our respect.’ 

‘ Could you respect her ? ’ Mercy asked, sadly. ‘ Can 
such a mind as yours understand what she has gone 
through?’ 

A smile, kind and momentary, brightened his atten- 
tive face. 

‘You forget my melancholy experience,’ he an- 
swered. ‘Young as I am, I have seen more than most 
men of women who have sinned and suffered. Even 
after the little that you have told me, I think I can 
put myself in her place. I can well understand, for 
instance, that she may have been tempted beyond 
human resistance. Am I right?’ 

‘You are right’ 

‘ She may have had nobody near at the time to advise 
her, to warn her, to save her. Is that true ? ’ 

‘It is true.’ 

‘Tempted and friendless, self-abandoned to the evil 
impulse of the moment, this woman may have com- 
mitted herself headlong to the act which she now vainly 
repents. She may long to make atonement, and may 
not know how to begin. All her energies may be 
crushed under the despair and horror of herself, out of 
which the truest repentance grows. Is such a woman 
as this all wicked, all vile? I deny it! She may have 
a noble nature; and she may show it nobly yet. Give 
her the opportunity she needs — ^^and our poor fallen 
fellow-creature may take her place again among the 
best of us; honoured, blameless, happy once morel’ 



THE GUARDIAN ANGEL 


179 

in her; then she is a woman to be trusted, respected, 
beloved! If I saw the Pharisees and Fanatics of this 
lower earth passing her by in contempt, I would hold 
out my hand to her before them all. I would say to 
her in her solitude and her affliction, “Rise, poor 
wounded heart! Beautiful, purified soul, God’s angels 
rejoice over you! Take your place among the noblest 
of God’s creatures!”’ 

In those last sentences he unconsciously repeated the 
language in which he had spoken to his outcast con- 
gregation in the chapel of the Refuge. With tenfold 
power and tenfold persuasion they now found their way 
again to Mercy’s heart. Softly, suddenly, mysteriously, 
a change passed over her. Her troubled face grew 
beautifully still. The shifting light of terror and sus- 
pense vanished from her grand grey eyes, and left in 
them the steady inner glow of a high and pure resolve. 

There was a moment of silence between them. They 
both had need of silence. Julian was the first to speak 
again. 

‘Have I satisfied you that her opportunity is still 
before her ? ’ he asked. ‘ Do you feel as I feel, that she 
has not done with hope?’ 

‘You have satisfied me that the world holds no truer 
friend to her than you,’ Mercy answered gently and 
gratefully. ‘She shall prove herself worthy of your 
generous confidence in her. She shall show you yet 
that you have not spoken in vain.’ 

Still inevitably failing to understand her, he led the 
way to the door. 

‘Don’t waste the precious time,’ he said. ‘Don’t 
leave her cruelly to herself. If you can’t go to her, let 
me go as your messenger, in your place.’ 

She stopped him by a gesture. He took a step back 



THE GUARDIAN ANGEL 


i8i 


in another instant he would have found his way to the 
truth. In that instant, innocently as a sister might 
have taken it, she took his hand. The soft clasp of 
her fingers, clinging round his, roused his senses, fired 
his passion for her, swept out of his mind the pure 
aspirations which had filled it but the moment before, 
paralysed his perception when it was just penetrating 
the mystery of her disturbed manner and her strange 
words. All the man in him trembled under the rapture 
of her touch. But the thought of Horace was still 
present to him: his hand lay passive in hers; his eyes 
looked uneasily away from her. 

She innocently strengthened her clasp of his hand. 
She innocently said to him, ‘ Don’t look away from me. 
Your eyes give me courage.’ 

His hand returned the pressure of hers. He tasted 
to the full the delicious joy of looking at her. She had 
broken down his last reserves of self-control. The 
thought of Horace, the sense of honour, became ob- 
scured in him. In a moment more he might have said 
the words which he would have deplored for the rest of 
his life, if she had not stopped him by speaking first. 
H have more to say to you,’ she resumed abruptly; 
feeling the animating resolution to lay her heart bare 
before him at last; ‘ more, far more, than I have said yet. 
Generous, merciful friend, let me say it here ! ’ 

She attempted to throw herself on her knees at his 
feet. He sprang from his seat and checked her, holding 
her with both his hands, raising her as he rose himself. 
In the words which had just escaped her, in the startling 
action which had accompanied them, the truth burst 
on him. 

The guilty woman she had spoken of was herself I 



THE SEARCH IN THE GROUNDS 183 

‘You apparently forget, Lady Janet, that you are not 
speaking to one of your footmen,’ he said. ‘There are 
serious reasons (of which you know nothing) for my 
remaining in your house a little longer. You may rely 
upon my trespassing on your hospitality as short a time 
as possible.’ 

He turned again to Mercy as he said those words, 
and surprised her timidly looking up at him. In the 
instant when their eyes met, the tumult of emotions 
struggling in him became suddenly stilled. Sorrow 
for her — compassionating sorrow — rose in the new 
calm and filled his heart. Now, and now only, he 
could read in the v/asted and noble face how she had 
suffered. The pity which he had felt for the unnamed 
woman grew to a tenfold pity for her. The faith which 
he had professed — honestly professed — in the better 
nature of the unnamed woman strengthened into a 
tenfold faith in her. He addressed himself again to 
his aunt in a gentler tone. ‘This lady,’ he resumed, 
‘has something to say to me in private which she has 
not said yet. That is my reason and my apology for 
not immediately leaving the house.’ 

Still under the impression of what she had seen on 
entering the room. Lady Janet looked at him in angry 
amazement. Was Julian actually ignoring Horace 
Holmcroft’s claims in the presence of Horace Holm- 
croft’s betrothed wife? She appealed to her adopted 
daughter. ‘ Grace ! ’ she exclaimed, ‘ have you heard him ? 
Have you nothing to say ? Must I remind you ’ 

She stopped. For the first time in Lady Janet’s 
experience of her young companion, she found herself 
speaking to ears that were deaf to her. Mercy was in- 
capable of listening. Julian’s eyes had told her that 
Julian understood her at last. 



THE SEARCH IN THE GROUNDS 185 

‘ I beg your ladyship’s pardon. I wished to take the 
liberty — I wanted to speak to Mr. Julian Gray.’ 

‘What is it?’ asked Julian. 

The man looked uneasily at Lady Janet, hesitated,, 
and glanced at the door as if he wished himself well out 
of the room again. 

‘ I hardly know if I can tell you, sir, before her lady- 
ship,’ he answered. 

Lady Janet instantly penetrated the secret of her 
servant’s hesitation. 

‘I know what has happened!’ she said. ‘That 
abominable woman has found her ’way here again. Am 
I right?’ 

The man’s eyes helplessly consulted Julian. 

‘Yes? or no?’ cried Lady Janet, imperatively. 

‘Yes, my lady.’ 

Julian at once assumed the duty of asking the neces- 
sary questions. 

‘Where is she?’ he began. 

‘ Somewhere in the grounds, as we suppose, sir.’ 

‘Did you see her?’ 

‘No, sir.’ 

‘Who saw her?’ 

‘The lodge-keeper’s wife.’ 

This looked serious. The lodge-keeper’s wife had 
been present while Julian had given his instructions to 
her husband. She was not likely to have mistaken the 
identity of the person whom she had discovered. 

‘How long since?’ Julian asked next. 

‘Not very long, sir.’ 

‘Be more particular. How long?’ 

‘I didn’t hear, sir.’ 

‘Did the lodge-keeper’s wife speak to the person 
when she saw her ? ’ 



THE SEARCH IN THE GROUNDS 187 

Taking this for granted, it was of the utmost im- 
portance that he should speak to Grace privately, be- 
fore she committed herself to any rashly-renewed 
assertion of her claims, and before she could gain access 
to Lady Janet’s adopted daughter. The landlady at 
her lodgings had already warned him that the object 
which she held steadily in view was to find her way to 
‘Miss Roseberry’ when Lady Janet was not present to 
take her part, and when no gentlemen were at hand to 
protect her. ‘Only let me meet her face to face’ (she 
had said), ‘and I will make her confess herself the im- 
postor that she is!’ As matters now stood, it was 
impossible to estimate too seriously the mischief which 
might ensue from such a meeting as this. Everything 
now depended on Julian’s skilful management of an 
exasperated woman; and nobody, at that moment, 
knew where the woman was. 

In this position of affairs, as Julian understood it, 
there seemed to be no other alternative than to make 
his enquiries instantly at the lodge, and then to direct 
the search in person. 

He looked towards Mercy’s chair as he arrived at 
this resolution. It was at a cruel sacrifice of his own 
anxieties and his own wishes that he deferred continu- 
ing the conversation with her, from the critical point at 
which Lady Janet’s appearance had interrupted it. 

Mercy had risen while he had been questioning the 
servant. The attention which she had failed to accord 
to what had passed between his aunt and himself she 
had given to the imperfect statement which he had 
extracted from the man. Her face plainly showed that 
she had listened as eagerly as Lady Janet had listened; 
with this remarkable difference between them, that 
Lady Janet looked frightened, and that Lady Janet’s 



THE SEARCH IN THE GROUNDS 189 

H want something of you/ Lady Janet answered, 
‘before you go.’ 

‘What is it?’ 

‘Your card.’ 

‘My card?’ 

‘You have just told me not to be uneasy,’ said the 
old lady. ‘I am uneasy, for all that. I don’t feel as 
sure as you do that this woman really is in the grounds. 
She may be lurking somewhere in the house, and she 
may appear when your back is turned. Remember 
what you told me.’ 

Julian understood the allusion. He made no reply. 

‘The people at the police-station close by,’ pursued 
Lady Janet, ‘have instructions to send an experienced 
man, in plain clothes, to any address indicated on your 
card the moment they receive it. That is what you 
told me. For Grace’s protection, I want your card 
before you leave us.’ 

It was impossible for Julian to mention the reasons 
which now forbade him to make use of his own pre- 
cautions — in the very face of the emergency which they 
had been especially designed to meet. How could he 
declare the true Grace Roseberry to be mad? How 
could he give the true Grace Roseberry into custody? 
On the other hand, he had personally pledged himself 
(when the circumstances appeared to require it) to 
place the means of legal protection from insult and 
annoyance at his aunt’s disposal. And now, there stood 
Lady Janet, unaccustomed to have her wishes disre- 
garded by anybody, with her hand extended, waiting 
for the card! 

What was to be done? The one way out of the 
difficulty appeared to be to submit for the moment. If 
he succeeded in discovering the missing woman, he 



THE SEARCH IN THE GROUNDS 191 

seen; but he had convinced her against her will. ‘ There 
is some secret understanding between them,’ thought 
the old lady, ‘and She is to blame; the women always 
are!’ 

Mercy still waited to be spoken to; pale and quiet, 
silent and submissive. Lady Janet — in a highly un- 
certain state of temper — was obliged to begin. 

‘ My dear 1 ’ she called out sharply. 

‘Yes, Lady Janet’ 

‘How much longer are you going to sit there, with 
your mouth shut up and your eyes on the carpet ? Have 
you no opinion to offer on this alarming state of things ? 
You heard what the man said to Julian — I saw you 
listening. Are you horribly frightened ? ’ 

‘No, Lady Janet’ 

‘Not even nervous?’ 

‘No, Lady Janet’ 

‘Ha! I should hardly have given you credit for so 
much courage after my experience of you a week ago. 
I congratulate you on your recovery. Do you hear? 
I congratulate you on your recovery.’ 

‘Thank you. Lady Janet.’ 

‘I am not so composed as you are. We were an 
excitable set in my youth — and I haven’t got the better 
of it yet. I feel nervous. Do you hear? I feel ner- 
vous.’ 

‘I am sorry. Lady Janet.’ 

‘You are very good. Do you know what I am going 
to do?’ 

‘No, Lady Janet’ 

‘I am going to summon the household. When I 
say the household, I mean the men; the women are of 
no use. I am afraid I fail to attract your attention ? ’ 

‘You have my best attention. Lady Janet.’ 



THE SEARCH IN THE GROUNDS 


193 


‘ Do you really feel as coolly as you speak ? ’ 

‘Yes, Lady Janet/ 

‘Have your own way, then. I shall do one thing, 
however, in case of your having over-estimated your 
own courage. I shall place one of the men in the 
library. You will only have to ring for him, if any- 
thing happens. He will give the alarm — and I shall 
act accordingly. I have my plan,’ said her ladyship, 
comfortably conscious of the card in her pocket. ‘ Don’t 
look as if you wanted to know what it is. I have no 
intention of saying anything about it — except that it 
will do. Once more, and for the last time — do you 
stay here ? or do you go with me ? ’ 

‘I stay here.’ 

She respectfully opened the library door for Lady 
Janet’s departure as she made that reply. Throughout 
the interview she had been carefully and coldly deferen- 
tial; she had not once lifted her eyes to Lady Janet’s 
face. The conviction in her that a few hours more 
would, in all probability, see her dismissed from the 
house, had of necessity fettered every word that she 
spoke — had morally separated her already from the 
injured mistress whose love she had won in disguise. 
Utterly incapable of attributing the change in her young 
companion to the true motive. Lady Janet left the 
room to summon her domestic garrison, thoroughly 
puzzled, and (as a necessary consequence of that con- 
dition) thoroughly displeased. 

Still holding the library door in her hand, Mercy 
stood watching with a heavy heart the progress of her 
benefactress down the length of the room, on the way 
to the front hall beyond. She had honestly loved and 
respected the warm-hearted, quick-tempered old lady. 
A sharp pang of pain wrung her as she thought of the 



THE EVIL GENIUS 


195 

still in her mind; there, established in triumph on the 
chair that she had just left — sat Grace Roseberry, in 
sinister silence, waiting for her. 


Y 


CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH 

THE EVIL GENIUS 

Recovering from the first overpowering sensation of 
surprise, Mercy rapidly advanced, eager to say her 
first penitent words. Grace stopped her by a warning 
gesture of the hand. ‘No nearer to me,’ she said, with 
a look of contemptuous command. ‘Stay where you 
are.’ 

Mercy paused. Grace’s reception had startled her. 
She instinctively took the chair nearest to her to sup- 
port herself. Grace raised a warning hand for the 
second time, and issued another command: 

‘I forbid you to be seated in my presence. You 
have no right to be in this house at all. Remember, if 
you please, who you are, and who I am.’ 

The tone in which those words were spoken was an 
insult in itself. Mercy suddenly lifted her head; the 
angry answer was on her lips. She checked it, and 
submitted in silence. ‘I will be worthy of Julian 
Gray’s confidence in me,’ she thought, as she stood 
patiently by the chair. ‘ I will bear anything from the 
woman whom I have wronged.’ 

In silence the two faced each other; alone together, 
for the first time since they had met in the French cot- 
tage. The contrast between them was strange to see. 
Grace Roseberry, seated in her chair, little and lean, 
with her dull white complexion, with her hard threat- 



THE EVIL GENIUS 


197 

‘I have not avoided you,’ she said. ‘I would have 
gone to you of my own accord if I had known that you 
were here. It is my heartfelt wish to own that 1 have 
sinned against you, and to make all the atonement that 
I can. I am too anxious to deserve your forgiveness to 
have any fear of seeing you.’ 

Conciliatory as the reply was, it was spoken with a 
simple and modest dignity of manner which roused 
Grace Roseberry to fury. 

‘ How dare you speak to me as if you were my equal ? ’ 
she burst out. ‘You stand there and answer me as if 
you had your right and your place in this house. You 
audacious woman! I have my right and my place 
here — and what am I obliged to do? I am obliged to 
hang about in the grounds, and fly from the sight of 
the servants, and hide like a thief, and wait like a 
beggar: and all for what? For the chance of having 
a word with you. Yes! you, madam, with the air of 
the Refuge and the dirt of the streets on you!’ 

Mercy’s head sank lower; her hand trembled as it 
held by the back of the chair. 

It was hard to bear the reiterated insults heaped on 
her, but Julian’s influence still made itself felt. She 
answered as patiently as ever: 

‘If it is your pleasure to use hard words to me,’ she 
said, ‘I have no right to resent them.’ 

‘You have no right to anything!’ Grace retorted. 
‘You have no right to the gown on your back. Look 
at Yourself, and look at Me ! ’ Her eyes travelled with a 
tigerish stare over Mercy’s costly silk dress. ‘ Who gave 
you that dress? who gave you those jewels? I know! 
Lady Janet gave them to Grace Roseberry. Are you 
Grace Roseberry ? That dress is mine. Take off your 
bracelets and your brooch. They were meant for me.’ 



THE EVIL GENIUS 


199 

This time the sting struck deep; the outrage was 
beyond endurance. Mercy gave the woman who had 
again and again deliberately insulted her a first warning. 

‘Miss Roseberry,’ she said, ‘I have borne without a 
murmur the bitterest words you could say to me. Spare 
me any more insults. Indeed, indeed, I am eager to 
restore you to your just rights. With my whole heart 
I say it to you — I am resolved to confess everything!’ 

She spoke with trembling earnestness of tone. Grace 
listened with a hard smile of incredulity and a hard 
look of contempt. 

‘You are not far from the bell,’ she said; ‘ring it’ 

Mercy looked at her in speechless surprise. 

‘You are a perfect picture of repentance — you are 
dying to own the truth,’ pursued the other satirically. 
‘ Own it before everybody, and own it at once. Call in 
Lady Janet — call in Mr. Gray and Mr. Holmcroft- — 
call in the servants. Go down on your knees and 
acknowledge yourself an impostor before them all. 
Then I will believe you — not before.’ 

‘Don’t, don’t turn me against you!’ cried Mercy en- 
treatingly. 

‘ What do I care whether you are against me or not ? ’ 

‘ Don’t — for your own sake don’t go on provoking me 
much longer!’ 

‘For my own sake? You insolent creature! Do 
you mean to threaten me?’ 

With a last desperate effort — her heart beating faster 
and faster, the blood burning hotter and hotter in her 
cheeks — Mercy still controlled herself. 

‘ Have some compassion on me ! ’ she pleaded. ‘ Badly 
as I have behaved to you, I am still a woman like your- 
self. I can’t face the shame of acknowledging what I 
have done before the whole house. Lady Janet treats 






^ Who are you 






THE EVIL GENIUS 


201 


She paused, and followed those words by a question 
which struck a creeping terror through Grace Rose- 
berry, from the hair of her head to the soles of her 
feet: 

^Who are youV 

The suppressed fury of look and tone which accom- 
panied that question told, as no violence could have 
told it, that the limits of Mercy’s endurance had been 
found at last. In the guardian angel’s absence, the evil 
genius had done its evil work. The better nature which 
Julian ‘Gray had brought to life sank, poisoned by the 
vile venom of a woman’s spiteful tongue. An easy and 
a terrible means of avenging the outrages heaped on 
her was within Mercy’s reach if she chose to take it. 
In the frenzy of her indignation she never hesitated — 
she took it. 

‘Who are you?’ she asked for the second time. 

Grace roused herself and attempted to speak. Mercy 
stopped her with a scornful gesture of her hand. 

‘I remember!’ she went on, with the same fiercely 
suppressed rage. ‘You are the madwoman from the 
German hospital who came here a week ago. I’m not 
afraid of you this time. Sit down and rest yourself — 
Mercy Merrick.’ 

Deliberately giving her that name to her face, Mercy 
turned from her and took the chair which Grace had 
forbidden her to occupy when the interview began. 

Grace started to her feet. 

‘What does this mean?’ she asked. 

‘It means,’ answered Mercy contemptuously, ‘that 
I recall every word I said to you just now. It means 
that I am resolved to keep my place in this house.’ 

‘Are you out of your senses?’ 

‘You are not far from the bell. Ring it. Do what 





THE EVIL GENIUS 


203 

defy me long. I have written to Canada. My friends 
will speak for me.’ 

‘What of it, if they do? Your friends are strangers 
here. I am Lady Janet’s adopted daughter. Do you 
think she will believe your friends ? She will believe me. 
She will burn their letters, if they write. She will for- 
bid the house to them if they come. I shall be Mrs. 
Horace Holmcroft in a week’s time. Who can shake 
wy position? Who can injure Me?’ 

‘ Wait a little. You forget the matron at the Refuge ? ’ 

‘Find her if you can. I never told you her name. I 
never told you where the Refuge was.’ 

‘I will advertise your name, and find the matron in 
that way.’ 

‘Advertise in every newspaper in London. Do you 
think I gave a stranger like you the name I really bore 
in the Refuge ? I gave you the name I assumed when 
I left England. No such person as Mercy Merrick is 
known to the matron. No such person is known to Mr. 
Holmcroft. He saw me at the French cottage while 
you were senseless on the bed. I had my grey cloak on; 
neither he nor any of them saw me in my nurse’s dress. 
Enquiries have been made about me on the Continent — 
and (I happen to know from the person who made them) 
with no result. I am safe in your place; I am known 
by your name. I am Grace Roseberry; and you are 
Mercy Merrick. Disprove it if you can!’ 

Summing up the unassailable security of her false 
position in those closing words, Mercy pointed signifi- 
cantly to the billiard-room door.’ 

‘You were hiding there, by your own confession, she 
said. ‘You know your way out by that door. Will 
you leave the room?’ 

‘I won’t stir a step!’ 



THE POLICEMAN 


205 

frightened? No! not in the least frightened! Well 
done, my dear!’ She had recovered her temper: she 
took Mercy’s hand as kindly as ever, and gave it a little 
friendly squeeze — then turned to the servant. ‘Wait 
in the library; I may want you again.’ She looked next 
at Julian. ‘Leave it all to me; I can manage it.’ She 
made a sign to Horace: ‘Stay where you are, and hold 
your tongue.’ Having now said all that was necessary 
to everyone else, she advanced to the part ok the room 
in which Grace was standing, with lowering brows and 
firmly-shut lips, defiant of everybody. 

‘I have no desire to offend you, or to act harshly 
towards you,’ her ladyship began, very quietly. ‘I 
only suggest that your visits to my house cannot possi- 
bly lead to any satisfactory result. I hope you will not 
oblige me to make use of harder words than these — I 
hope you will understand that I wish you to withdraw.’ 

The order of dismissal could hardly have been issued 
with more humane consideration for the supposed men- 
tal infirmity of the person to whom it was addressed. 
Grace instantly resisted it in the plainest possible terms. 

‘In justice to my father’s memory, and in justice to 
myself,’ she answered, ‘I insist on a hearing. I refuse 
to withdraw.’ She deliberately took a chair and seated 
herself in the presence of the mistress of the house. 

Lady Janet waited a moment — steadily controlling 
herself. In the interval of silence, Julian seized the 
opportunity of remonstrating with Grace. 

‘Is this what you promised me?’ he asked gently. 
‘You gave me your word that you would not return to 
Mablethorpe House.’ 

Before he could say more. Lady Janet spoke again. 
She began her answer to Grace by pointing with a 
peremptory forefinger to the library door. 



THE POLICEMAN 


207 

‘You degrade yourself if you answer her/ he said. 
‘Take my arm, and let us leave the room.’ 

‘Yes! Take her out!’ cried Grace. ‘She may well 
be ashamed to face an honest woman. It’s her place to 
leave the room— not mine!’ 

Mercy drew her hand out of Horace’s arm. ‘I de- 
cline to leave the room,’ she said quietly. 

Horace still tried to persuade her to withdraw. ‘I 
can’t bear to hear you insulted,’ he rejoined. ‘The 
woman offends me, though I know she is not respon- 
sible for what she says.’ 

‘Nobody’s endurance will be tried much longer,’ said 
Lady Janet. She glanced at Julian, and, taking from 
her pocket the card which he had given to her, opened 
the library door. 

‘Go to the police-station,’ she said to the servant in 
an undertone, ‘and give that card to the inspector on 
duty. Tell him there is not a moment to lose.’ 

‘Stop!’ said Julian, before his aunt could close the 
door again. 

‘Stop?’ repeated Lady Janet, sharply. ‘I have 
given the man his orders. What do you mean ? ’ 

‘ Before you send the card, I wish to say a word in 
private to this lady,’ replied Julian, indicating Grace. 
‘ When that is done,’ he continued, approaching Mercy, 
and pointedly addressing himself to her, ‘I shall have 
a request to make — ^I shall ask you to give me an 
opportunity of speaking to you without interrup- 
tion.’ 

His tone pointed the allusion. Mercy shrank from 
looking at him. The signs of painful agitation began 
to show themselves in her shifting colour and her un- 
easy silence. Roused by Julian’s significantly distant 
reference to what had passed betewen them, her better 



THE POLICEMAN 


209 

His tone announced that he was not to be trifled with. 
The man obeyed. 

Without answering Lady Janet — who still peremp- 
torily insisted on her right to act for herself — Julian 
took the pencil from his pocket-book and added his 
signature to the writing already inscribed on the card. 
When he had handed it back to the servant he made his 
apologies to his aunt. 

‘Pardon me for venturing to interfere,’ he said. 
‘ There is a serious reason for what I have done, which 
I will explain to you at a fitter time. In the meanwhile 
I offer no further obstruction to the course which you 
propose taking. On the contrary, I have just assisted 
you in gaining the end that you have in view.’ 

As he said that, he held up the pencil with which he 
had signed his name. 

Lady Janet, naturally perplexed, and (with some 
reason perhaps) offended as well, made no answer. 
She waved her hand to the servant, and sent him away 
with the card. 

There was silence in the room. The eyes of all the 
persons present turned more or less anxiously on Julian. 
Mercy was vaguely surprised and alarmed. Horace, 
like Lady Janet, felt offended, without clearly knowing 
why. Even Grace Roseberry herself was subdued by 
her own presentiment of some coming interference for 
which she was completely unprepared. Julian’s words 
and actions, from the moment when he had written on 
the card, were involved in a mystery to which not one 
of the persons round him held the clue. 

The motive which had animated his conduct may, 
nevertheless, be described in two words: Julian still 
held to his faith in the inbred nobility of Mercy’s nature. 





THE POLICEMAN 


2II 


or of confessing the truth — and what would happen? 
If Julian’s confidence in her was a confidence soundly 
placed, she would nobly pardon the outrages that had 
been heaped upon her, and she would do justice to the 
woman whom she had wronged. 

If, on the other hand, his belief in her was nothing 
better than the blind belief of an infatuated man — if she 
faced the alternative, and persisted in asserting her 
assumed identity, what then? 

Julian’s faith in Mercy refused to let that darker side 
of the question find a place in his thoughts. It rested 
entirely with him to bring the officer into the house. 
He had prevented Lady Janet from making any mis- 
chievous use of his card, by sending to the police- 
station, and warning them to attend to no message 
which they might receive unless the card produced bore 
his signature. Knowing the responsibility that he was 
taking on himself — knowing that Mercy had made no 
confession to him to which it was possible to appeal — 
he had signed his name without an instant’s hesitation : 
and there he stood now, looking at the woman whose 
better nature he was determined to vindicate, the only 
calm person in the room. 

Horace’s jealousy saw something suspiciously sug- 
gestive of a private understanding in Julian’s earnest 
attention and in Mercy’s downcast face. Having no 
excuse for open interference, he made an effort to part 
them. 

‘You spoke just now,’ he said to Julian, ‘of wishing 
to say a word in private to that person.’ (He pointed 
to Grace.) ‘Shall we retire, or will you take her into 
the library ? ’ 

‘ I refuse to have anything to say to him,’ Grace burst 



THE POLICEMAN 


213 

gratulations on our approaching marriage. She begs 
you to accept, as part of your bridal dress, these pearls. 
She was married in them herself. They have been 
in our family for centuries. As one of the family, 
honoured and beloved, my mother offers them to my 
wife.’ 

He lifted the necklace to clasp it round Mercy’s neck. 

Julian watched her in breathless suspense. Would 
she sustain the ordeal through which Horace had in- 
nocently condemned her to pass? 

Yes! In the insolent presence of Grace Roseberry, 
what was there now that she could not sustain? Her 
pride was in arms. Her lovely eyes lighted up as only 
a woman’s eyes can light up when they see jewellery. 
Her grand head bent gracefully to receive the necklace. 
Her face warmed into colour; her beauty rallied its 
charms. Her triumph over Grace Roseberry was com- 
plete! Julian’s head sank. For one sad moment he 
secretly asked himself the question: ‘Have I been 
mistaken in her?’ 

Horace arrayed her in the pearls. 

‘Your, husband puts these pearls on your neck, 
love,’ he said proudly, and paused to look at her. 
‘ Now,’ he added with a contemptuous backward glance 
at Grace, ‘we may go into the library. She has seen, 
and she has heard.’ 

He believed that he had silenced her. He had 
simply furnished her sharp tongue with a new sting. 

‘ You will hear, and you will see, when my proofs 
come from Canada,’ she retorted. ‘You will hear that 
your wife has stolen my name and my character! You 
will see your wife dismissed from this house!’ 

Mercy turned on her with an uncontrollable out- 
burst of passion. 



THE POLICEMAN 


215 

looked all round the magnificent room, without betray- 
ing either surprise or admiration. He closely investi- 
gated every person in it with one glance of his cun- 
ningly-watchful eyes. Making his bow to Lady 
Janet, he silently showed her, as his introduction, the 
card that had summoned him. And then he stood at 
ease, self-revealed in his own sinister identity — a po- 
lice-officer in plain clothes. 

Nobody spoke to him. Everybody shrank inwardly, 
as if a reptile had crawled into the room. 

He looked backwards and forwards, perfectly un- 
embarrassed, between Julian and Horace. 

‘Is Mr. Julian Gray here?’ he asked. 

Julian led Grace to a seat. Her eyes were fixed on 
the man. She trembled — she whispered, ‘ Who is 
he ? ’ Julian spoke to the police-officer without answer- 
ing her. 

‘Wait there,’ he said, pointing to a chair in the 
most distant corner of the room. ‘I will speak to you 
directly.’ 

The man advanced to the chair, marching to the 
discord of his creaking boots. He privately valued 
the carpet, at so much a yard, as he walked over it. 
He privately valued the chair, at so much the dozen, as. 
he sat down on it. He was quite at his ease: it was 
no matter to him, whether he waited and did nothing, 
or whether he pried into the private character of every 
one in the room, as long as he was paid for it. 

Even Lady Janet’s resolution to act for herself was 
not proof against the appearance of the policeman in 
plain clothes. She left it to her nephew to take the 
lead. Julian glanced at Mercy before he stirred further 
in the matter. He knew that the end rested now, not 
with him, but with her. 





THE POLICEMAN 


217 

‘To the police-station!’ she repeated. ‘What 
f or ? ’ 

‘How can you ask the question?’ said Horace irri- 
tably. ‘To be placed under restraint, of course.’ 

‘Do you mean a prison?’ 

‘I mean an asylum.’ 

Again Mercy turned to Julian. There was horror 
now, as well as surprise, in her face. ‘Ohi’ she said 
to him, ‘Horace is surely wrong? It can’t be?’ 

Julian left it to Horace to answer. Every faculty 
in him seemed to be still absorbed in watching Mercy’s 
face. She was compelled to address herself to Horace 
once more. 

‘What sort of asylum?’ she asked. ‘You don’t 
surely mean a mad-house?’ 

‘I do,’ he rejoined. ‘The workhouse first, perhaps 
— and then the mad-house. What is there to surprise 
you in that? You yourself told her to her face she 
was mad. Good heavens! how pale you are! What 
is the matter?’ 

She turned to Julian for the third time. The 
terrible alternative that was offered to her had showed 
itself at last, without reserve or disguise. Restore the 
identity that you have stolen or shut her up in a mad- 
house — it rests with you to choose! In that form the 
situation shaped itself in her mind. She chose on the 
instant. Before she opened her lips the higher nature 
in her spoke to Julian in her eyes. The steady inner 
light that he had seen in them once already shone in 
them again, brighter and purer than before. The con- 
science that he had fortified, the soul that he had saved, 
looked at him and said. Doubt us no more! 

‘Send that man out of the house.’ 

Those were her first words. She spoke (pointing to 



THE POLICEMAN 


219 

own creaking boots; bowed, with a villainous smile 
which put the worst construction upon everything; and 
vanished through the library door. 

Lady Janet’s high breeding restrained her from say- 
ing anything until the police-officer was out of hearing. 
Then, and not till then, she appealed to Julian. 

‘I presume you are in the secret of this?’ she said. 
‘ I suppose you have some reason for setting my author- 
ity at defiance in my own house ? ’ 

H have never yet failed to respect your ladyship,’ 
Julian answered. ‘Before long you will know that I 
am not failing in respect towards you now.’ 

Lady Janet looked across the room. Grace was 
listening eagerly, conscious that events had taken 
some mysterious turn in her favour within the last 
minute. 

‘Is it part of your new arrangement of my affairs,’ 
her ladyship continued, ‘that this person is to remain 
in the house?’ 

The terror that had daunted Grace had not lost all 
hold of her yet. She left it to Julian to reply. Before 
he could speak, Mercy crossed the room and whispered 
to her, ‘ Give me time to confess it in writing. I can’t 
own it before them — with this round my neck.’ She 
pointed to the necklace. Grace cast a threatening 
glance at her and suddenly looked away again in 
silence. 

Mercy answered Lady Janet’s question. ‘I beg 
your ladyship to permit her to remain until the half 
hour is over,’ she said. ‘My request will have ex- 
plained itself by that time.’ 

Lady Janet raised no further obstacles. Something 
in. Mercy’s face, or in Mercy’s tone, seemed to have 
silenced her, as it had silenced Grace. Horace was the 



THE POLICEMAN 


221 


‘You?’ 

She bent her head respectfully. 

‘I have begged you, Lady Janet, to give me half 
an hour,’ she went on. ‘In half an hour I solemnly 
engage myself to produce Mercy Merrick in this room. 
Lady Janet Roy, Mr. Horace Holmcroft, you are to 
wait for that.’ 

Steadily pledging herself in those terms to make 
her confession, she unclasped the pearls from her neck, 
put them away in their case, and placed it in Horace’s 
hand. ‘ Keep it,’ she said, with a momentary faltering 
in her voice, ‘until we meet again.’ 

Horace took the case in silence; he looked and 
acted like a man whose mind was paralysed by sur- 
prise. His hand moved mechanically. His eyes fol- 
lowed Mercy with a vacant questioning look. Lady 
Janet seemed, in her different way, to share the strange 
oppression that had fallen on him. A marked change 
had appeared in her since Mercy had spoken last. 

‘Have I your ladyship’s leave,’ said Mercy, respect- 
fully, ‘ to go to my room ? ’ 

Lady Janet mutely granted the request. Mercy’s 
last look, before she went out, was a look at Grace. 
‘Are you satisfied now?’ the grand grey eyes seemed 
to say mournfully. Grace turned her head aside, 
with a quick petulant action. Even her narrow nature 
opened for a moment unwillingly, and let pity in a little 
way, in spite of itself. 

Mercy’s parting words recommended Grace to 
Julian’s care: 

‘You will see that she is allowed a room to wait 
in? You will warn her yourself when the half hour 
has expired?’ 

Julian opened the library door for her. 



FOOTSTEP IN THE CORRIDOR 223 

painful embarrassment, if she admitted him to a pri- 
vate interview while Horace was in the house. 

The one course left to take was the course that she 
had adopted. Determining to address the narrative of 
the Fraud to Julian in the form of a letter, she arranged 
to add, at the close, certain instructions, pointing out 
to him the line of conduct which she wished him to 
pursue. 

These instructions contemplated the communica- 
tion of her letter to Lady Janet and to Horace, in the 
library, while Mercy — self-confessed as the missing 
woman whom she had pledged herself to produce — 
awaited in the adjoining room whatever sentence it 
pleased them to pronounce on her. Her resolution not 
to screen herself behind Julian from any consequences 
which might follow the confession had taken root in 
her mind from the moment when Horace had harshly 
asked her (and when Lady Janet had joined him in 
asking) why she delayed her explanation and what she 
was keeping them waiting for. Out of the very pain 
which those questions inflicted, the idea of waiting her 
sentence in her own person, in one room, while her 
letter to Julian was speaking for her in another had 
sprung to life. ‘ Let them break my heart if they like,’ 
she had thought to herself in the self-abasement of 
that bitter moment; ‘it will be no more than I have 
deserved.’ 

She locked her door and opened her writing-desk. 
Knowing what she had to do, she tried to collect herself 
and do it. 

The effort was in vain. Those persons who study 
writing as an art are probably the only persons who 
can measure the vast distance which separates a con- 



FOOTSTEP IN THE CORRIDOR 225 

have its fortifying effect on her mind, and might pave 
the way for resuming the letter that was hard to write. 
She waited a moment at the window, thinking of the 
past life to which she was soon to return, before she 
took up the pen again. 

Her window looked eastward. The dusky glare of 
lighted London met her as her eyes rested on the sky. 
It seemed to beckon her back to the horror of the cruel 
streets — to point her way mockingly to the bridges 
over the black river^ — to lure her to the top of the 
parapet, and the dreadful leap into God’s arms, or into 
annihilation — who knew which? 

She turned, shuddering, from the window. ‘Will 
it end in that way,’ she asked herself, ‘if the matron 
says No?’ 

She began her letter. 

‘Dear Madam, — So long a time has passed since 
you heard from me, that I almost shrink from writing 
to you. I am afraid you have already given me up in 
your own mind as a hard-hearted, ungrateful woman. 

‘I have been leading a false life; I have not been 
fit to write to you before to-day. Now, when I am 
doing what I can to atone to those whom I have injured 
— now, when I repent with my whole heart — may I ask 
leave to return to the friend who lias borne with me 
and helped me through many miserable years? Oh, 
madam, do not cast me off! I have no one to turn to 
but you. 

‘Will you let me own everything to you? Will 
you forgive me when you know what I have done? 
Will you take me back into the Refuge, if you have 
any employment for me by which I may earn my shelter 
and my bread? 






FOOTSTEP IN THE CORRIDOR 227 

‘The name by which you know me is not the name 
by which I have been known here. I must beg you to 
address the telegram to “The Rev. Julian Gray, Mable- 
thorpe House, Kensington.” He is here, and he will 
show it to me. No words of mine can describe what 
I owe to him. He has never despaired of me — he has 
saved me from myself. God bless and reward the 
kindest, truest, best man I have ever known! 

‘I have no more to say, except to ask you to ex- 
cuse this long letter, and to believe me your grateful 
servant, 

She signed and enclosed the letter and wrote the 
address. Then, for the first time, an obstacle which 
she ought to have seen before showed itself, standing 
straight in her way. 

There was no time to forward her letter in the 
ordinary manner by post. It must be taken to its 
destination by a private messenger. Lady Janet’s 
servants had hitherto been, one and all, at her dis- 
posal. Could she presume to employ them on her own 
affairs when she might be dismissed from the house, a 
disgraced woman, in half an hour’s time? Of the two 
alternatives, it seemed better to take her chance and 
present herself M the Refuge without asking leave 
first. 

While she was still considering the question, she 
was startled by a knock at her door. On opening it, 
she admitted Lady Janet’s maid with a morsel of folded 
note paper in her hand. 

‘From my lady, miss,’ said the woman, giving her 
the note. ‘There is no answer.’ 

Mercy stopped her, as she was about to leave the 
room. The appearance of the maid suggested an en- 



1 


FOOTSTEP IN THE CORRIDOR 229 

There the note ended. To what conclusion did it 
point ? 

Had Lady Janet really guessed the truth? or had 
she only surmised that her adopted daughter was con- 
nected in some discreditable manner with the mystery 
of ‘Mercy Merrick’? The line in which she referred 
to the intruder in the dining-room as ‘ the lady’ showed 
very remarkably that her opinions had undergone a 
change in that quarter. But was the phrase enough 
of itself to justify the inference that she had actually 
anticipated the nature of Mercy’s confession? It was 
not easy to decide that doubt at the moment — and it 
proved to be equally difficult to throw any light on it 
at an after time. To the end of her life Lady Janet 
resolutely refused to communicate to anyone the con- 
clusions which she might have privately formed, the 
griefs which she might have secretly stifled, on that 
memorable day. 

Amid much, however, which was beset with uncer- 
tainty, one thing at least was clear. The time at 
Mercy’s disposal in her own room had been indefinitely 
prolonged by Mercy’s benefactress. Hours might pass 
before the disclosure to which she stood committed 
would be expected from her. In those hours she might 
surely compose her mind sufficiently to be able to write 
her letter of confession to Julian Gray. 

Standing near her glass as these thoughts occurred 
to her, she noticed the reflection of herself still arrayed 
in the rich dress, still wearing the jewels which Lady 
Janet had given to her. 

She shuddered as the remembrance of what Grace 
Roseberry had said recurred to her mind. The plain 
dress in which she had entered Mablethorpe House 
still hung in a dark comer of her wardrobe. She put 



FOOTSTEP IN THE CORRIDOR 231 

confronted them with one another at Mablethorpe 
House. 

She had, as she well remembered, attended at a 
certain assembly (convened by a charitable society) in 
the character of Lady Janet’s representative, at Lady 
Janet’s own request. For that reason, she had been 
absent from the house when Grace had entered it. If 
her return had been delayed by a few minutes only, 
Julian would have had time to remove Grace from the 
room; and the terrible meeting which had stretched 
Mercy senseless on the floor would never have taken 
place. As the event had happened, the persons assem- 
bled at the society’s rooms had disagreed so seriously 
on the business which had brought them together as 
to render it necessary to take the ordinary course of 
adjourning the proceedings to a future day. And 
Chance, or Fate, had so timed that adjournment as to 
bring Mercy back into the dining-room exactly at the 
moment when Grace Roseberry insisted on being con- 
fronted with the woman who had taken her place! 

She had never yet seen the circumstances in this 
sinister light. She was alone, at a crisis in her life. 
She was worn and weakened by contending emotions 
which had shaken her to the soul. 

Little by little, she felt the enervating influences 
let loose on her, in her lonely position, by her new 
train of thought. Little by little, her heart began to 
sink under the stealthy chill or superstitious dread. 
Vaguely horrible presentiments throbbed in her with 
her pulses, flowed through her with her blood. Mystic 
oppressions of hidden disaster hovered over her in 
the atmosphere of the room. The cheerful candlelight 
turned traitor to her and grew dim. Supernatural 
murmurs trembled round the house in the moaning of 




FOOTSTEP IN THE CORRIDOR 


233 


placed her own boudoir at the disposal of the very 
woman whom she had ordered half an hour before to 
leave the house? Do you really not know that Mr. 
Julian Gray has himself conducted this suddenly- 
honoured guest to her place of retirement? and that 
I am left alone in the midst of these changes, con- 
tradictions, and mysteries — the only persoyi who is 
kept out in the dark?’ 

‘It is surely needless to ask me these questions,’ 
said Mercy, gently. ‘Who could possibly have told 
me what was going on below stairs before you knocked 
at my door ? ’ 

He looked at her with an ironical affectation of 
surprise. 

‘ You are strangely forgetful to-day,’ he said. ‘ Surely 
your friend Mr. Julian Gray might have told you? 
I am astonished to hear that he has not had his private 
interview yet.’ 

‘I don’t understand you, Horace.’ 

‘I don’t want you to understand me,’ he retorted 
irritably. ‘The proper person to understand me is 
Julian Gray. I look to him to account to me for the 
confidential relations which seem to have been estab- 
lished between you behind my back. He has avoided 
me thus far, but I shall find my way to him yet.’ 

His manner threatened more than his words ex- 
pressed. In Mercy’s nervous condition at the moment, 
it suggested to her that he might attempt to fasten a 
quarrel on Julian Gray. 

‘You are entirely mistaken,’ she said warmly. 
‘You are ungratefully doubting your best and truest 
friend. I say nothing of myself. You will soon dis- 
cover why I patiently submit to suspicions which other 
women would resent as an insult.’ 



FOOTSTEP IN THE CORRIDOR 235 

claimed no more than his due. She answered in- 
stantly. 

‘I will follow you to the library, Horace, in five 
minutes.’ 

Her prompt and frank compliance with his wishes 
surprised and touched him. He took her hand. 

She had endured all that his angry sense of injury 
could say. His gratitude wounded her to the quick. 
The bitterest moment she had felt yet was the mo- 
ment in which he raised her hand to his lips and 
murmured tenderly, ‘My own true Grace!’ She could 
only sign to him to leave her and hurry back into her 
own room. 

Her first feeling, when she found herself alone 
again, was wonder — wonder that it should never have 
occurred to her, until he had himself suggested it, that 
her betrothed husband had the foremost right to her 
confession. Her horror of owning to either of them 
that she had cheated them out of their love had hitherto 
placed Horace and Lady Janet on the same level. She 
now saw for the first time that there was no comparison 
between the claims which they respectively had on her. 
She owed an allegiance to Horace to which Lady Janet 
could assert no right. Cost her what it might to avow 
the truth to him with her own lips, the cruel sacrifice 
must be made. 

Without a moment’s hesitation she put away her 
writing materials. It amazed her that she should ever 
have thought of using Julian Gray as an interpreter 
between the man to whom she was betrothed and her- 
self. Julian’s sympathy (she thought) must have made 
a strong impression on her indeed, to blind her to a 
duty which was beyond all compromise, which ad- 
mitted of no dispute! 



THE MAN IN THE DINING-ROOM 237 
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND 

THE MAN IN THE DINING-ROOM 

In the great emergencies of life we feel, or we act, 
as our dispositions incline us. But we never think. 
Mercy’s mind was a blank as she descended the stairs. 
On her way down, she was conscious of nothing but the 
one headlong impulse to get to the library in the 
shortest possible space of time. Arrived at the door, 
the impulse capriciously left her. She stopped on the 
mat, wondering why she had hurried herself, with time 
to spare. Her heart sank; the fever of her excite- 
ment changed suddenly to a chill, as she faced the 
closed door, and asked herself the question. Dare I go 
in? 

Her own hand answered her. She lifted in turn 
the handle of the lock. It dropped again helplessly at 
her side. 

The sense of her own irresolution wrung from her 
a low exclamation of despair. Faint as it was, it had 
apparently not passed unheard. The door was opened 
from within — and Horace stood before her. 

He drew aside to let her pass into the room. But 
he never followed her in. He stood in the doorway, 
and spoke to her, keeping the door open with his 
hand. 

‘Do you mind waiting here for me?’ he asked. 

She looked at him, in vacant surprise, doubting 
whether she had heard him aright. 

‘It will not be for long,’ he went on. ‘I am far 
too anxious to hear what you have to tell me to submit 
to any needless delays. The truth is, I have had a 
message from Lady Janet.’ 



THE MAN IN THE DINING-ROOM 239 

At the first step, she checked herself; rooted to the 
spot, under a sudden revulsion of feeling which quieted 
her in an instant. 

The room was only illuminated by the waning fire- 
light. A man was obscurely visible seated on the 
sofa, with his elbows on his knees and his head resting 
on his hands. He looked up, as the open door let in 
the light from the library lamps. The mellow glow 
reached his face, and revealed Julian Gray. 

Mercy was standing with her back to the light; her 
face being necessarily hidden in deep shadow. He 
recognised her by her figure, and by the attitude into 
which it unconsciously fell. That unsought grace, 
that lithe long beauty of line, belonged to but one 
woman in the house. He rose, and approached her. 

‘I have been wishing to see you,’ he said, ‘and hop- 
ing that accident might bring about some such meet- 
ing as this.’ 

He offered her a chair. Mercy hesitated before she 
took her seat. This was their first meeting alone 
since Lady Janet had interrupted her at the moment 
when she was about to confide to Julian the melan- 
choly story of the past. Was he anxious to seize the 
opportunity of returning to her confession ? The 
terms in which he had addressed her seemed to imply 
it. She put the question to him in plain words. 

‘I feel the deepest interest in hearing all that you 
have still to confide to me,’ he answered. ‘ But anxious 
as I may be, I will not hurry you. I will wait, if you 
wish it.’ 

‘I am afraid I must own that I do wish it,’ Mercy 
rejoined. ‘Not on my own account — but because my 
time is at the disposal of Horace Holmcroft. I expect 
to see him in a few minutes.’ 



THE MAN IN THE DINING-ROOM 241 

ant eyes of love; she has listened to you with the quick 
hearing of love — and she has found her own way to 
the truth. She will not speak of it to me — she will 
not speak of it to any living creature. I only know 
now how dearly she loved you. In spite of herself she 
clings to you still. Her life, poor soul, has been a 
barren one; unworthy, miserably unworthy, of such a 
nature as hers. Her marriage was loveless and child- 
less. She has had admirers, but never, in the higher 
sense of the word, a friend. All the best years of her 
life have been wasted in the unsatisfied longing for 
something to love. At the end of her life You have 
filled the void. Her heart has found its youth again, 
through You. At her age — at any age — is such a tie 
as this to be rudely broken at the mere bidding of 
circumstances? No! She will suffer anything, risk 
anything, forgive anything, rather than own, even to 
herself, that she has been deceived in you. There is 
more than her happiness at stake; there is pride, a 
noble pride, in such love as hers, which will ignore 
the plainest discovery and deny the most unanswerable 
truth. I am firmly convinced — from my own knowledge 
of her character, and from what I have observed in her 
to-day — that she will find some excuse for refusing to 
hear your confession. And more than that, I believe (if 
the exertion of her influence can do it), that she will 
leave no means untried of preventing you from acknowl- 
edging your true position here to any living creature. 
I take a serious responsibility on myself in telling 
you this — and I don’t shrink from it. You ought to 
know, and you shall know, what trials and what tempta- 
tions may yet lie before you.’ 

He paused — leaving Mercy time to compose herself, 
if she wished to speak to him. 



THE MAN IN THE DINING-ROOM 243 

grief in her eyes as they rested in startled enquiry on 
Julian’s face. 

‘How is it possible that temptation can come to me 
now?’ she asked. 

‘I will leave it to events to answer that question,’ 
he said. ‘You will not have long to wait. In the 
meantime I have put you on your guard.’ He stooped 
and spoke his next words earnestly, close at her ear. 
‘Hold fast by the admirable courage which you have 
shown thus far,’ he went on. ‘ Suffer anything, rather 
than suffer the degradation of yourself. Be the woman 
whom I once spoke of — the woman I still have in my 
mind — who can nobly reveal the noble nature that is 
in her. And never forget this — my faith in you is as 
firm as ever!’ 

She looked at him proudly and gratefully. 

‘I am pledged to justify your faith in me,’ she 
said. ‘I have put it out of my own power to yield. 
Horace has my promise that I will explain every- 
thing to him in this room.’ 

Julian started. 

‘Has Horace himself asked it of you?’ he enquired. 
^ He, at least, has no suspicion of the truth.’ 

‘Horace has appealed to my duty to him as his 
betrothed wife,’ she answered. ‘ He has the first claim 
to my confidence — he resents my silence, and he has 
a right to resent it. Terrible as it will be to open his 
eyes to the truth, I must do it if he asks me.’ 

She was looking at Julian while she spoke. The 
old longing to associate with the hard trial of the 
confession the one man who had felt for her and be- 
lieved in her revived under another form. If she 
could only know, while she was saying the fatal words 
to Horace, that Julian was listening too, she would be 



THE MAN IN THE DINING-ROOM 245 

refuse to hear the confession which it had been her 
first impulse to make to him — these were cruel sacri- 
fices to his sense of what was due to Horace and of 
what was due to himself. But shrink as he might, 
even from the appearance of deserting her, it was im- 
possible for him (except under a reserve which was 
almost equivalent to a denial) to grant her request. 

‘All that I can do I will do,’ he said. ‘The door 
shall be left unclosed, and I will remain in the next 
room, on this condition — that Horace knows of it as 
well as you. I should be unworthy of your confidence 
in me if I consented to be a listener on any other 
terms. You understand that, I am sure, as well as 
I do.’ 

She had never thought of her proposal to him in 
this light. Womanlike, she had thought of nothing 
but the comfort of having him near her. She under- 
stood him now. A faint flush of shame rose on her pale 
cheeks as she thanked him. He delicately relieved 
her from her embarrassment by putting a question 
which naturally occurred under the circumstances. 

‘Where is Horace all this time?’ he asked. ‘Why 
is he not here ? ’ 

‘He has been called away,’ she answered, ‘by a 
message from Lady Janet.’ 

The reply more than astonished Julian; it seemed 
almost to alarm him. He returned to Mercy’s chair; 
he said to her eagerly, ‘ Are you sure ? ’ 

‘Horace himself told me that Lady Janet had 
insisted on seeing him.’ 

‘When?’ 

‘Not long ago. He asked me to wait for him here, 
while he went upstairs.’ 

Julian’s face darkened ominously. 



THE MAN IN THE DINING-ROOM 247 

narrow, mean, and low nature as hers. Understanding, 
as she could not fail to do, what the sudden change in 
Lady Janet’s behaviour towards her really meant, her 
one idea was to take the cruellest possible advantage of 
it. So far from feeling any consideration for you^ she 
was only additionally embittered towards you. She 
protested against your being permitted to claim the 
merit of placing her in her right position here by your 
own voluntary avowal of the truth. She insisted on 
publicly denouncing you, and on forcing Lady Janet to 
dismiss you, unheard, before the whole household. 
‘‘Now I can have my revenge! At last Lady Janet is 
afraid of me!” Those were her own words — I am 
almost ashamed to repeat them — those, on my honour, 
were her own words! Every possible humiliation to be 
heaped on you; no consideration to be shown for Lady 
Janet’s age and Lady Janet’s position; nothing, abso- 
lutely nothing, to be allowed to interfere with Miss 
Roseberry’s vengeance and Miss Roseberry’s triumph. 
There is this woman’s shameless view of what is due to 
her, as stated by herself in the plainest terms. I kept 
my temper; I did all I could to bring her to a better 
frame of mind. I might as well have pleaded — I won’t 
say with a savage; savages are sometimes accessible to 
remonstrance, if you know how to reach them — I might 
as well have pleaded with a hungry animal to abstain 
from eating while food was within its reach. I had just 
given up the hopeless effort in disgust, when Lady 
Janet’s maid appeared with a message for Miss Rose- 
berry from her mistress: “My lady’s compliments, 
ma’am, and she would be glad to see you at your 
earliest convenience, in her room.”’ 

(Another surprise! Grace Roseberry invited to an 
interview with Lady Janet! It would have been im- 



THE MAN IN THE DINING-ROOM 249 

heard a footstep outside? No. All was still. Not a 
sign yet of Horace’s return. 

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, ‘what would I not give to 
know what is going on upstairs!’ 

‘You will soon know it now,’ said Julian. ‘It is 
impossible that our present uncertainty can last much 
longer.’ 

He turned away, intending to go back to the room 
in which she had found him. Looking at her situation 
from a man’s point of view, he naturally assumed that 
the best service he could now render to Mercy would 
be to leave her to prepare herself for the interview with 
Horace. Before he had taken three steps away from 
her, she showed him the difference between the woman’s 
point of view and the man’s. The idea of considering 
beforehand what she should say never entered her mind. 
In her horror of being left by herself at that critical 
moment, she forgot every other consideration. Even 
the warning remembrance of Horace’s jealous distrust 
of Julian passed away from her as completely as if it 
had never had a place in her memory. ‘Don’t leave 
me!’ she cried. ‘I can’t wait here alone. Come back 
— come back!’ 

She rose impulsively, while she spoke, as if to fol- 
low him into the dining-room, if he persisted in leav- 
ing her. 

A momentary expression of doubt crossed Julian’s, 
face as he retraced his steps and signed to her to be 
seated again. Could she be depended on (he asked 
himself) to sustain the coming test of her resolution, 
when she had not courage enough to wait for events 
in a room by herself? Julian had yet to learn that 
a woman’s courage rises with the greatness of the 
emergency. Ask her to accompany you through a 



THE MAN IN THE DINING-ROOM 251 

Julian went on, ‘that person can hardly have been a 
man, or we must have heard him in the hall.’ 

The conclusion which her companion had just 
drawn from the noiseless departure of the supposed 
visitor raised a sudden doubt in Mercy’s mind. 

‘Go, and enquire!’ she said eagerly. 

Julian left the room; and returned again, after a 
brief absence, with signs of grave anxiety in his face 
and manner. 

‘I told you I dreaded the most trifling events that 
were passing about us,’ he said. ‘An event, which is 
far from being trifling, has just happened. The car- 
riage which we heard approaching along the drive 
turns out to have been a cab sent for from the house. 
The person who has gone away in it’ 

‘Is a woman as you supposed?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

Mercy rose excitedly from her chair. 

Tt can’t be Grace Roseberry?’ she exclaimed. 

‘It is Grace Roseberry.’ 

‘Has she gone away alone?’ 

‘Alone — after an interview with Lady Janet.’ 

‘Did she go willingly?’ 

‘ She herself sent the servant for the cab.’ 

‘What does it mean?’ 

‘It is useless to enquire. We shall soon know.’ 

They resumed their seats; waiting, as they had 
waited already, with their eyes on the library door. 



LADY JANET AT BAY 253 

in the keen hungering tenderness of the look which 
they fixed on the portrait, intensified by an underly- 
ing expression of fond and patient reproach. The 
danger which Julian so wisely dreaded was in the rest 
of the face; the love which he had so truly described 
was in the eyes alone. They still spoke of the cruelly- 
profaned affection which had been the one immeasur- 
able joy, the one inexhaustible hope, of Lady Janet’s 
closing life. The brow expressed nothing but her 
obstinate determination to stand by the wreck of that 
joy, to rekindle the dead ashes of that hope. The lips 
were only eloquent of her unflinching resolution to 
ignore the hateful present and to save the sacred past. 
^My idol may be shattered, but none of you shall 
know it. I stop the march of discovery; I extinguish 
the light of truth. I am deaf to your words, I am 
blind to your proofs. At seventy years old, my idol is 
my life. It shall be my idol still.’ 

The silence in the bedroom was broken by a mur- 
muring of women’s voices outside the door. 

Lady Janet instantly raised herself in the chair and 
snatched the photograph off the easel. She laid the 
portrait face downwards among some papers on the 
table — then abruptly changed her mind, and hid it 
among the thick folds of lace which clothed her neck 
and bosom. There was a world of love in the action 
itself, and in the sudden softening of the eyes which 
accompanied it. The next moment Lady Janet’s mask 
was on. Any superficial observer who had -seen her 
now would have said, ‘ This is a hard woman ! ’ 

The door was opened by the maid. Grace Rose- 
berry entered the room. 

She advanced rapidly, with a defiant assurance in 



LADY JANET AT BAY 255 

deception that has been practised on you. For some 
reason of your own, however, you have not yet chosen to 
recognise me openly. In this painful position some- 
thing is due to my own self-respect. I cannot, and will 
not, permit Mercy Merrick to claim the merit of re- 
storing me to my proper place in this house. After what 
I have suffered, it is quite impossible for me to endure 
that. I should have requested an interview (if you 
had not sent for me) for the express purpose of claiming 
this person’s immediate expulsion from the house. I 
claim it now as a proper concession to Me. Whatever 
you or Mr. Julian Gray may do, I will not tamely per- 
mit her to exhibit herself as an interesting penitent. It 
is really a little too much to hear this brazen adventuress 
appoint her own time for explaining herself. It is too 
deliberately insulting to see her sail out of the room. — 
with a clergyman of the Church of England opening the 
door for her — as if she was laying me under an obliga- 
tion! I can forgive much. Lady Janet, including the 
terms in which you thought it decent to order me out of 
your house. I am quite willing to accept the offer of 
your boudoir as the expression on your part of a better 
frame of mind. But even Christian charity has its 
limits. The continued presence of that wretch under 
your roof is, you will permit me to remark, not only a 
monument of your own weakness, but a perfectly in- 
sufferable insult to Me.’ 

There she stopped abruptly — not for want of words, 
but for want of a listener. 

Lady Janet was not even pretending to attend to her. 
Lady Janet, with a deliberate rudeness entirely foreign 
to her usual habits, was composedly busying herself in 
arranging the various papers scattered about the table. 
Some she tied together with little morsels of string; 


Ik » 



LADY JANET AT BAY 257 

you, and you have repelled my advances. I am sorry. 
Let us drop the subject.^ 

Expressing herself with the most perfect temper in 
those terms, Lady Janet resumed the arrangement of 
her papers, and became unconscious once more of the 
presence of any second person in the room. 

Grace opened her lips to reply with the utmost in- 
temperance of an angry woman, and, thinking better 
of it, controlled herself. It was plainly useless to take 
the violent way with Lady Janet Roy. Her age and 
her social position were enough of themselves to repel 
any violence. She evidently knew that, and trusted to 
it. Grace resolved to meet the enemy on the neutral 
ground of politeness, as the most promising ground 
that she could occupy under present circumstances. 

‘ If I have said anything hasty, I beg to apologise to 
your ladyship,’ she began. ‘May I ask if your only 
object in sending for me was to enquire into my pecun- 
iary affairs, with a view to assisting me?’ 

‘That,’ said Lady Janet, ‘was my only object.’ 

‘You had nothing to say to me on the subject of 
Mercy Merrick?’ 

‘ Nothing whatever. I am weary of hearing of Mercy 
Merrick. Have you any more questions to ask me ? ’ 

‘I have one more,’ 

‘Yes?’ 

‘ I wish to ask your ladyship whether you propose to 
recognise me in the presence of your household as the 
late Colonel Roseberry’s daughter ? ’ 

‘I have already recognised you as a lady in embar- 
rassed circumstances, who has peculiar claims on my 
consideration and forbearance. If you wish me to re- 
peat those words in the presence of the servants (absurd 
as it is) I am ready to comply with your request.’ 



LADY JANET AT BAY 259 

the use of my boudoir, as part of my atonement. I 
sent for you, in the hope that you would allow me to 
assist you, as part of my atonement. You may behave 
rudely to me, you may speak in the most abusive terms 
of my adopted daughter; I will submit to anything, as 
part of my atonement. So long as you abstain from 
speaking on one painful subject, I will listen to you 
with the greatest pleasure. Whenever you return to 
that subject I shall return to my papers.’ 

Grace looked at Lady Janet with an evil smile. 

‘I begin to understand your ladyship,’ she said. 
‘You are ashamed to acknowledge that you have been 
grossly imposed upon. Your only alternative, of 
course, is to ignore everything that has happened. 
Pray count on my forbearance. I am not at all of- 
fended — I am merely amused. It is not every day 
that a lady of high rank exhibits herself in such a 
position as yours to an obscure woman like me. Your 
humane consideration for me dates, I presume, from 
the time when your adopted daughter set you the 
example, by ordering the police-officer out of the 
room?’ 

Lady Janet’s composure was proof even against this 
assault on it. She gravely accepted Grace’s enquiry as 
a question addressed to her in perfect good faith. 

‘I am not at all surprised,’ she replied, ‘to find that 
my adopted daughter’s interference has exposed her to 
misrepresentation. She ought to have remonstrated 
with me privately before she interfered. But she has 
one fault — she is too impulsive. I have never, in all 
my experience, met with such a warm-hearted person 
as she is. Always too considerate of others; always 
too forgetful of herself! The mere appearance of the 
police-officer placed you in a situation to appeal to her 



26 i 


LADY JANET AT BAY 

covered that you had any claim on me which the law 
could enforce. However, let us suppose that you can 
set the law in action. You know as well as I do that 
the only motive power which can do that is — money. 
I am rich; fees, costs, and all the rest of it are matters 
of no sort of consequence to me. May I ask if you are 
in the same position?’ 

The question silenced Grace. So far as money was 
concerned, she was literally at the end of her resources. 
Her only friends were friends in Canada. After what 
she had said to him in the boudoir, it would be quite 
useless to appeal to the sympathies of Julian Gray. In 
the pecuniary sense, and in one word, she was absolutely 
incapable of gratifying her own vindictive longings. 
And there sat the mistress of Mablethorpe House, per- 
fectly well aware of it. 

Lady Janet pointed to the empty chair. 

‘ Suppose you sit down again ? ’ she suggested. ‘ The 
course of our interview seems to have brought us back 
to the question that I asked you when you came into my 
room. Instead of threatening me with the law, suppose 
you consider the propriety of permitting me to be of 
some use to you ? I am in the habit of assisting ladies 
in embarrassed circumstances, and nobody knows of it 
but my steward — who keeps the accounts — and myself. 
Once more, let me enquire if a little advance of the 
pecuniary sort (delicately offered) would be acceptable 
to you?’ 

Grace returned slowly to the chair that she had left. 
She stood by it, with one hand grasping the top rail, 
and with her eyes fixed in mocking scrutiny on Lady 
Janet’s face. 

‘At last your ladyship shows your hand,’ she said. 
‘Hush-money!’ 



LADY JANET AT BAY 263 

Grace Roseberry might be, her father had left her, in 
his last moments, with Lady Janet’s full concurrence, 
to Lady Janet’s care. But for Mercy, she would have 
been received at Mablethorpe House as Lady Janet’s 
companion, with a salary of one hundred pounds a year. 
On the other hand, how long (with such a temper as 
she had revealed) would Grace have remained in the 
service of her protectress ? She would, probably, have 
been dismissed in a few weeks, with a year’s salary to 
compensate her, and with a recommendation to some 
suitable employment. What would be a fair compen- 
sation now ? Lady Janet decided that five years’ salary 
immediately given, and future assistance rendered if 
necessary, would represent a fit remembrance of the 
late Colonel Roseberry’s claims, and a liberal pecuniary 
acknowledgment of any harshness of treatment which 
Grace might have sustained at her hands. At the 
same time, and for the further satisfying of her own 
conscience, she determined to discover the sum which 
Grace herself would consider sufficient, by the simple 
process of making Grace herself propose the terms. 

‘It is impossible for me to make you an offer,’ she 
said, ‘ for this reason, — your need of money will depend 
greatly on your future plans. I am quite ignorant of 
your future plans.’ 

‘Perhaps your ladyship will kindly advise me?’ said 
Grace satirically. 

‘I cannot altogether undertake to advise you,’ Lady 
Janet replied. ‘I can only suppose that you will 
scarcely remain in England, where you have no friends. 
Whether you go to law with me or not, you will surely 
feel the necessity of communicating personally with 
your friends in Canada. Am I right?’ 

Grace was quite quick enough to understand this as 



LADY JANET AT BAY 265 

she had been accustomed to see shillings and sixpences 
carefully considered before they were parted with. She 
had never known her father to possess so much as five 
golden sovereigns at his own disposal (unencumbered 
by debt) in all her experience of him. The atmosphere 
in which she had lived and breathed was the all-stifling 
atmosphere of genteel poverty. There was something 
horrible in the greedy eagerness of her eyes as they 
watched Lady Janet, to see if she was really sufficiently 
in earnest to give away five hundred pounds sterling 
with a stroke of her pen. 

Lady Janet wrote the cheque in a few seconds, and 
pushed it across the table. 

Grace’s hungry eyes devoured the golden line, ‘Pay 
to myself or bearer five hundred pounds,’ and verified 
the signature beneath, ‘Janet Roy.’ Once sure of the 
money whenever she chose to take it, the native mean- 
ness of her nature instantly asserted itself. She tossed 
her head, and let the cheque lie on the table, with an 
over-acted appearance of caring very little whether she 
took it or not. 

‘Your ladyship is not to suppose that I snap at your 
cheque,’ she said. 

Lady Janet leaned back in her chair and closed her 
eyes. The very sight of Grace Roseberry sickened her. 
Her mind filled suddenly with the image of Mercy. 
She longed to feast her eyes again on that grand beauty, 
to fill her ears again with the melody of that gentle voice. 

‘I require time to consider — in justice to my own 
self-respect,’ Grace went on. 

Lady Janet wearily made a sign, granting time to 
consider. 

‘Your ladyship’s boudoir is, I presume, still at my 
disposal ? ’ 



LADY JANET AT BAY 267 

endurable. The inbred force of the woman’s nature 
took refuge from it in an outburst of defiance and 
despair. ‘ Whatever she has done, that wretch deserves 
it! Not a living creature in this house shall say she 
has deceived me. She has not deceived me — she loves 
me! What do I care whether she has given me her 
true name or not? She has given me her true heart. 
What right had Julian to play upon her feelings and 
pry into her secrets ? My poor, tempted, tortured child ! 
I won’t hear her confession. Not another word shall 
she say to any living creature. I am mistress — I will 
forbid it at once!’ She snatched a piece of note paper 
from the case; hesitated; and threw it from her on the 
table. ‘Why not send for my darling?’ she thought. 
‘Why write?’ She hesitated once more, and resigned 
the idea. ‘No! I can’t trust myself! I daren’t see her 
yet!’ 

She took up the sheet of paper again, and wrote her 
second message to Mercy. This time, the note began 
fondly, with a familiar form of address. 

‘My dear Child, — I have had time to think, and 
compose myself a little, since I last wrote, requesting 
you to defer the explanation which you had promised 
me. I already understand (and appreciate) the mo- 
tives which led you to interfere as you did downstairs, 
and I now ask you to entirely abandon the explanation. 
It will, I am sure, be painful to you (from reasons of 
your own into which I have no wish to enquire) to 
produce the person of whom you spoke, and, as you 
know already, I myself am weary of hearing of her. 
Besides, there is really no need now for you to explain 
anything. The stranger whose visits here have caused 
us so much pain and anxiety will trouble us no more. 



269 


LADY JANET AT BAY 

‘Anything more?’ 

‘ She has sent one of the men-servants, my lady, for 
a cab. If your ladyship had only heard how she spoke 
to him!’ 

Lady Janet intimated by a sign that she would rather 
not hear. She at once enclosed the cheque in an un- 
directed envelope. 

‘Take that to her,’ she said, ‘and then come back to 
me.’ 

Dismissing Grace Roseberry from all further con- 
sideration, Lady Janet sat, with her letter to Mercy in 
her hand, reflecting on her position, and on the efforts 
which it might still demand from her. Pursuing this 
train of thought, it now occurred to her that accident 
might bring Horace and Mercy together at any mo- 
ment, and that, in Horace’s present frame of mind, he 
would certainly insist on the explanation which it was 
the foremost interest of her life to suppress. The dread 
of this disaster was in full possession of her when the 
maid returned. 

‘Where is Mr. Holmcroft?’ she asked, the moment 
the woman entered the' room. 

‘I saw him open the library door, my lady, just now, 
on my way upstairs.’ 

‘Was he alone?’ 

‘Yes, my lady.’ 

‘ Go to him, and say I want to see him here imme- 
diately.’ 

The maid withdrew on her second errand. Lady 
Janet rose restlessly, and closed the open window. Her 
impatient desire to make sure of Horace so completely 
mastered her that she left her room, and met the woman 
in the corridor on her return. Receiving Horace’s mes- 
sage of excuse, she instantly sent back the peremptory 



LADY JANET AT BAY 271 

Excuse me/ he said, ‘if I mention that I am rather 
in a hurry. ^ 

‘Why are you in a hurry?’ 

‘I have reasons for wishing to see Grace as soon as 
possible.’ 

‘And / have reasons,’ Lady Janet rejoined, ‘for 
wishing to speak to you about Grace before you see 
her; serious reasons. Sit down.’ 

Horace started. ‘Serious reasons!’ he repeated. 
‘You surprise me.’ 

‘I shall surprise you still more before I have done.’ 

Their eyes met, as Lady Janet answered in those 
terms. Horace observed signs of agitation in her, 
which he now noticed for the first time. His face 
darkened with an expression of sullen distrust — and he 
took the chair in silence. 


CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH 

LADY JANET’S LETTER 

The narrative leaves Lady Janet and Horace Holm- 
croft together, and returns to Julian and Mercy in the 
library. 

An interval passed — a long interval, measured by 
the impatient reckoning of suspense — after the cab 
which had taken Grace Roseberry away had left the 
house. The minutes followed each other; and still the 
warning sound of Horace’s footstep was not heard on 
the marble pavement of the hall. By common (though 
unexpressed) consent, Julian and Mercy avoided touch- 
ing upon the one subject on which they were now both 



LADY JANET’S LETTER 273 

‘ I understand that. But how came you to bring the 
letter here?’ 

‘ My lady rang for me, miss. Before I could knock 
at her door, she came out into the corridor, with that 
morsel of paper in her hand’ 

‘ So as to keep you from entering her room ? ’ 

‘Yes, miss. Her ladyship wrote on the paper in a 
great hurry, and told me to pin it round the letter that 
I had left in your room. I was to take them both 
together to you and to let nobody see me. “You will 
find Miss Roseberry in the library” (her ladyship says), 
“and run, run, run! there isn’t a moment to losel’^ 
Those were her own words, miss.’ 

‘Did you hear anything in the room before Lady 
Janet came out and met you?’ 

The woman hesitated, and looked at Julian. 

‘ I hardly know whether I ought to tell you, miss.’ 

Julian turned away to leave the library. Mercy 
stopped him by a motion of her hand. 

‘ You know that I shall not get you into any trouble,’ 
she said to the maid. ‘And you may speak quite 
safely before Mr. Julian Gray.’ 

Thus reassured, the maid spoke. 

‘To own the truth, miss, I heard Mr. Holmcroft in 
my lady’s room. His voice sounded as if he was angry. 
I may say they were both angry — Mr. Holmcroft and 
my lady.’ (She turned to Julian.) ‘And just before 
her ladyship came out, sir, I heard your name — as if it 
was you they were having words about. I can’t say 
exactly what it was; I hadn’t time to hear. And I 
didn’t listen, miss. The door was ajar; and the voices 
were so loud nobody could help hearing them.’ 

It was useless to detain the woman any longer. Hav- 
ing given her leave to withdraw, Mercy turned to Julian. 



LADY JANET’S LETTER 275 

He who had once pleaded with Mercy for compassionate 
consideration for herself now pleaded with her for 
compassionate consideration for Lady Janet. With 
persuasive gentleness, he drew a little nearer, and laid 
his hand on her arm. 

‘Don’t judge her harshly,’ he said. ‘She is wrong, 
miserably wrong. She has recklessly degraded herself; 
she has recklessly tempted you. Still, is it generous — 
is it even just — to hold her responsible for deliberate 
sin? She is at the close of her days; she can feel no 
new affection; she can never replace you. View her 
position in that light, and you will see (as I see) that 
it is no base motive that has led her astray. Think of 
her wounded heart and her wasted life — and say to 
yourself forgivingly. She loves me!’ 

Mercy’s eyes filled with tears. 

‘I do say itl’ she answered. ‘Not forgivingly — it 
is I who have need of forgiveness. I say it gratefully 
when I think of her — I say it with shame and sorrow 
when I think of myself.’ 

He took her hand for the first time. He looked, 
guiltlessly looked, at her downcast face. He spoke as 
he had spoken at the memorable interview between 
them which had made a new woman of her. 

‘I can imagine no crueller trial,’ he said, ‘than 
the trial that is now before you. The benefactress to 
horn you owe everything, asks nothing from you but 
your silence. The person whom you have wronged is 
no longer present to stimulate your resolution to speak. 
Horace himself (unless I am entirely mistaken) will 
not hold you to the explanation that you have promised. 
The temptation to keep your false position in this 
house is, I do not scruple to say, all but irresistible. 
Sister and friend! Can you still justify my faith in 



LADY JANET’S LETTER 277 

room. When he turned and came back to her, his face 
was composed; he was master of himself again. 

Mercy was the first to speak. She turned the con- 
versation from herself by reverting to the proceedings 
in Lady Janet’s room. 

‘You spoke of Horace just now,’ she said, ‘in terms 
which surprised me. You appeared to think that he 
would not hold me to my explanation. Is that one 
of the conclusions which you draw from Lady Janet’s 
letter?’ 

‘Most assuredly,’ Julian answered. ‘You will see 
the conclusion as I see it, if we return for a moment to 
Grace Roseberry’s departure from the house.’ 

Mercy interrupted him there. ‘ Can you guess,’ she 
asked, ‘how Lady Janet prevailed upon her to go?’ 

‘I hardly like to own it,’ said Julian. ‘There is 
an expression in the letter which suggests to me that 
Lady Janet has offered her money, and that she has 
taken the bribe.’ 

‘Oh, I can’t think thatl’ 

‘Let us return to Horace. Miss Roseberry once out 
of the house, but one serious obstacle is left in Lady 
Janet’s way. That obstacle is Horace Holmcroft.’ 

‘How is Horace an obstacle?’ 

‘He is an obstacle in this sense. He is under an 
engagement to marry you in a week’s time; and Lady 
Janet is determined to keep him (as she is determined 
to keep everyone else) in ignorance of the truth. She 
will do that without scruple. But the inbred sense of 
honour in her is not utterly silenced yet. She cannot, 
she dare not, let Horace make you his wife, under the 
false impression that you are Colonel Roseberry’s daugh- 
ter. You see the situation? On the one hand she 



LADY JANET’S LETTER 279 

‘Must you ask me that?’ he said, drawing back a 
little from her. 

‘I must’ 

‘I mean by Horace’s temper, Horace’s unworthy 
distrust of the interest that I feel in you.’ 

She instantly understood him. And more than that, 
she secretly admired him for the scrupulous delicacy 
with which he had expressed himself. Another man 
would not have thought of sparing her in that way. 
Another man would have said plainly, ‘Horace is 
jealous of me.’ 

Julian did not wait for her to answer him. He con- 
siderately went on. 

‘For the reason that I have just mentioned,’ he 
said, ‘Horace will be easily irritated into taking a 
course which, in his calmer moments, nothing would 
induce him to adopt. Until I heard what your maid 
said to you, I had thought (for your sake) of retiring 
before Tie joined you here. Now I know that my name 
has been introduced, and has made mischief upstairs, 
I feel the necessity (for your sake again) of meeting 
Horace and his temper face to face before you see him. 
Let me, if I can, prepare him to hear you, without any 
angry feeling in his mind towards me. Do you object 
to retire to the next room for a few minutes, in the event 
of his coming back to the library?’ 

Mercy’s courage instantly rose with the emergency. 
She refused to leave the two men together. 

‘Don’t think me insensible to your kindness,’ she 
said. ‘If I leave ‘you with Horace I may expose you 
to insult. I refuse to do that. What makes you doubt 
his coming back?’ 

‘His prolonged absence makes me doubt it,’ Julian 
replied. ‘ In my belief the marriage is broken off. He 



THE CONFESSION 


281 


a parson and a woman. The parson’s profession pro- 
tects him, and the woman’s sex protects her. You have 
got me at a disadvantage, and you both of you know it. 
I beg to apologise if I have forgotten the clergyman’s 
profession and the lady’s sex.’ 

‘You have forgotten more than that,’ said Julian. 

‘You have forgotten that you were bom a gentleman 
and bred a man of honour. So far as I am concerned I 
don’t ask you to remember that I am a clergyman — I 
obtrude my profession on nobody — only ask you to 
remember your birth and your breeding. It is quite 
bad enough to cruelly and unjustly suspect an old friend 
who has never forgotten what he owes to you and to 
himself. But it is still more unworthy of you to ac- 
knowledge those suspicions in the hearing of a woman 
whom your own choice has doubly bound you to 
respect.’ 

He stopped. The two eyed each other for a moment 
in silence. 

It was impossible for Mercy to look at them, as she 
was looking now, without drawing the inevitable com- 
parison between the manly force and dignity of Julian 
and the womanish malice and irritability of Horace. A 
last faithful impulse of loyalty towards the man to whom 
she had been betrothed impelled her to part them before 
Horace had hopelessly degraded himself in her estima- 
tion by contrast with Julian. 

‘You had better wait to speak to me,’ she said to 
him, ‘ until we are alone.’ 

‘Certainly,’ Horace answered with a sneer, ‘if Mr. 
Julian Gray will permit it.’ 

Mercy turned to Julian, with a look which said 
plainly, ‘Pity us both, and leave us I’ 

‘ Do you wish me to go ? ’ he asked. 



THE CONFESSION 283 

‘Mr. Julian Gray has never breathed a word of it 
to me.’ 

‘ A man can show a woman that he loves her without 
saying it in words.’ 

Mercy’s power of endurance began to fail her. Not 
even Grace Roseberry had spoken more insultingly to 
her of Julian than Horace was speaking now. ‘Who- 
ever says that of Mr. Julian Gray, lies!’ she answered 
warmly. 

‘Then Lady Janet lies,’ Horace retorted. 

‘Lady Janet never said it! Lady Janet is incapable 
of saying itl’ 

‘She may not have said it in so many words; but 
she never denied it when I said it. I reminded her of 
the time when Julian Gray first heard from me that I 
was going to marry you: he was so overwhelmed that 
he was barely capable of being civil to me. Lady 
Janet was present and could not deny it. I asked her 
if she had observed, since then, signs of a confidential 
understanding between you two. She could not deny 
the sign. I asked her if she had ever found you two 
together. She could not deny that she had found you 
together, this very day, under circumstances which 
justified suspicion. Yes! yes! Look as angry as you 
like ! You don’t know what has been going on upstairs. 
Lady Janet is bent on breaking off our engagement — 
and Julian Gray is at the bottom of it.’ 

As to Julian, Horace was utterly wrong. But as to 
Lady Janet, he echoed the warning words which Julian 
himself had spoken to Mercy. She was staggered, but 
she still held to her own opinion. ‘I don’t believe it!’ 
she said, firmly. 

He advanced a step, and fixed his angry eyes on her 
searchingly. 



THE CONFESSION 


285 


‘Do you understand me, so far?’ Horace asked. 

‘I understand you perfectly.’ 

‘I will not trouble you much longer,’ he resumed. 
‘I said to Lady Janet, “Be so good as to answer me in 
plain words. Do you still insist on closing Miss Rose- 
berry’s lips?” “I still insist,” she answered. “No 
explanation is required. If you are base enough to 
suspect your betrothed wife, I am just enough to 
believe in my adopted daughter.” I replied — and I 
beg you will give your best attention to what I am now 
going to say — I replied to that, “It is not fair to charge 
me with suspecting her. I don’t understand her confi- 
dential relations with Julian Gray, and I don’t under- 
stand her language and conduct in the presence of the 
police-officer. I claim it as my right to be satisfied on 
both those points — in the character of the man who is 
to marry her.” There was my answer. I spare you 
all that followed. I only repeat what I said to Lady 
Janet. She has commanded you to be silent. If you 
obey her commands, I owe it to myself and I owe it to 
my family to release you from your engagement. 
Choose between your duty to Lady Janet and your 
duty to Me.’ 

He had mastered his temper at last: he spoke with 
dignity, and he spoke to the point. His position was 
unassailable; he claimed nothing but his right. 

‘My choice was. made,’ Mercy answered, ‘when I 
gave you my promise upstairs.’ 

She waited a little, struggling to control herself on 
the brink of the terrible revelation that was coming. 
Her eyes dropped before his; her heart beat faster and 
faster—but she rallied bravely. With a desperate 
courage she faced the position. ‘If you are ready 
to listen,’ she went on, ‘I am ready to tell you why 



THE CONFESSION 287 

suspicion of her. She rose from her seat and met his 
eye firmly. 

T refuse to degrade myself, and to degrade Mr. 
Julian Gray, by answering you,’ she said. 

‘ Consider what you are doing,’ he rejoined. ‘ Change 
your mind before it is too late!’ 

‘ You have had my reply.’ 

Those resolute words, that steady resistance, seemed 
to infuriate him. He caught her roughly by the arm. 

‘You are as false as belli’ he cried. ‘It’s all over 
between you and mel’ 

The loud threatening tone in which he had spoken 
penetrated through the closed door of the dining-room. 
The door instantly opened. Julian returned to the 
library. 

He had just set foot in the room, when there was a 
knock at the other door — the door that opened on the 
hall. One of the men-servants appeared, with a tele- 
graphic message in his hand. Mercy was the first to 
see it. It was the Matron’s answer to the letter which 
she had sent to the Refuge. 

‘For Mr. Julian Gray?’ she asked. 

‘Yes, miss.’ 

‘ Give it to me.’ 

She signed to the man to withdraw, and herself 
gave the telegram to Julian. ‘It is addressed to you, 
at my request,’ she said. ‘ You will recognise the name 
of the person who sends it, and you will find a message 
in it for me.’ 

Horace interfered before Julian could open the 
telegram. 

‘Another private understanding between you!’ he 
said. ‘Give me that telegram.’ 

Julian looked at him with quiet contempt. 



THE CONFESSION 


289 

She neither answered nor moved. Nothing stirred 
the horrible torpor of her resignation to her fate. She 
knew that the time had come. 

Julian looked at Horace. 

‘Don’t read it!’ he cried. ‘Hear what she has to 
say to you first!’ 

Horace’s hand answered him with a contemptuous 
gesture. Horace’s eyes devoured, word by word, the 
Matron’s message. 

He looked up when he had read it through. There 
was a ghastly change in his face as he turned it on 
Mercy. 

She stood between the two men like a statue. The 
life in her seemed to have died out except in her eyes. 
Her eyes rested on Horace with a steady, glittering 
calmness. 

The silence was only broken by the low murmuring 
of Julian’s voice. His face was hidden in his hands — 
he was praying for them. 

Horace spoke — laying his finger on the telegram. His 
voice had changed with the change in his face. The 
tone was low and trembling: no one would have 
recognised it as the tone of Horace’s voice. 

‘ What does this mean ? ’ he said to Mercy. ‘ It can’t 
be for you?’ 

‘It is for me.’ 

‘What have You to do with a Refuge?’ 

Without a change in her face, without a movement 
in her limbs, she spoke the fatal words. 

‘I have come from a Refuge, and I am going back 
to a Refuge. Mr. Horace Holmcroft, I am Mercy 
Merrick.’ 



GREAT HEART AND LITTLE HEART 291 

his face, and put his hand in a weak, wavering way on 
her shoulder. In that position he stood for awhile, 
looking down at her in silence. 

The one idea in him that found its way outwards to 
expression was the idea of Julian. Without moving 
his hand, without looking up from Mercy, he spoke for 
the first time since the shock had fallen on him. 

‘Where is Julian?^ he asked, very quietly. 

‘I am here, Horace — close by you.’ 

‘Will you do me a service?’ 

‘Certainly. How can I help you?’ 

He considered a little before he replied. His hand 
left Mercy’s shoulder, and went up to his head — then 
dropped at his side. His next words were spoken in a 
sadly helpless, bewildered way. 

‘I have an idea, Julian, that I have been somehow to 
blame. I said some hard words to you. It was a 
little while since. I don’t clearly remember what it 
was all about. My temper has been a good deal tried 
in this house; I have never been used to the sort of 
thing that goes on here — secrets and mysteries, and 
hateful, low-lived quarrels. We have no secrets and 
mysteries at home. And as for quarrels — ridiculous! 
My mother and my sisters are highly-bred women (you 
know them); gentlewomen, in the best sense of the 
word. When I am with them I have no anxieties. I 
am not harassed at home by doubts of who people are, 
and confusion about names, and so on. I suspect the 
contrast weighs a little on my mind, and upsets it. 
They make me over-suspicious among them here — and 
it ends in my feeling doubts and fears that I can’t get 
over; doubts about you, and fears about myself. I 
have got a fear about myself now. I want you to help 
me. Shall I make an apology first?’ 



GREAT HEART AND LITTLE HEART 293 

Julian answered him as before. He went on, speak- 
ing more confidently and more excitedly than he had 
spoken yet. 

‘Now attend to this, Julian. I am going to pass 
from my memory of what happened a week ago to my 
memory of what happened five minutes since. You 
were present; I want to know if you heard it too.’ He 
paused, and, without taking his eyes off Julian, pointed 
backwards to Mercy. ‘There is the lady who is en- 
gaged to marry me,’ he resumed. ‘ Did I, or did I not, 
hear her say that she had come out of a Refuge, and 
that she was going back to a Refuge ? Did I, or did I 
not, hear her own to my face that her name was Mercy 
Merrick? Answer me, Julian. My good friend, an- 
swer me for the sake of old times.’ 

His voice faltered as he spoke these imploring words. 
Under the dull blank of his face there appeared the 
first signs of emotion slowly forcing its way outwards. 
The stunned mind was reviving faintly. Julian saw 
his opportunity of aiding the recovery, and seized it. 
He took Horace gently by the arm and pointed to 
Mercy. 

‘There is your answer!’ he said. ‘Look! — and pity 
her.’ 

She had not once interrupted them while they had 
been speaking: she had changed her position again, 
and that was all. There was a writing-table at the 
side of her chair; her outstretched arms rested on it. 
Her head had dropped on her arms, and her face was 
hidden. Julian’s judgment had not misled him; the 
utter self-abandonment of her attitude answered Horace 
as no human language could have answered him. He 
looked at her. A quick spasm of pain passed across his 
face. He turned once more to the faithful friend who 



GREAT HEART AND LITTLE HEART 295 

faltered over it for an instant. Horace had loved her — 
how dearly, Julian now knew for the first time. The 
bare possibility that she might earn her pardon if she 
was allowed to plead her own cause was a possibility 
still left. To let her win on Horace to forgvie her was 
death to the love that still filled his heart in secret. 
But he never hesitated. With a resolution which the 
weaker man was powerless to resist, he took him by 
the arm and led him back to his place. 

^For her sake, and for your sake, you shall not con- 
demn her unheard,’ he said to Horace firmly. ‘One 
temptation to deceive you after another has tried her, 
and she has resisted them all. With no discovery to 
fear; with a letter from the benefactress who loves her, 
commanding her to be silent; with everything that a 
woman values in this world to lose if she owns what 
she has done — this woman, for the truth’s sake, has 
spoken the truth. Does she deserve nothing at your 
hands in return for that? Respect her, Horace, and 
hear her.’ 

Horace yielded. Julian turned to Mercy. 

‘You have allowed me to guide you so far,’ he said. 
‘ Will you allow me to guide you still ? ’ 

Her eyes sank before his; her bosom rose and fell 
rapidly. His influence over her maintained its sway. 
She bowed her head in speechless submission. 

‘Tell him,’ Julian proceeded, in accents of entreaty^ 
not of command, ‘tell him what your life has been. 
Tell him how you were tried and tempted, with no 
friend near to speak the words which might have saved 
you. And then,’ he ^dded, raising her from the chair, 
‘let him judge you — if he can!’ 

He attempted to lead her across the room to the 
place which Horace occupied. But her submission had 



GREAT HEART AND LITTLE HEART 297 

Horace/ he said quietly. 'Grant her justice, if you 
can grant no more. I leave you together.’ 

He advanced towards the door of the dining-room. 
Horace’s weakness disclosed itself once more. 

‘ Don’t leave me alone with her ! ’ he burst out. ' The 
misery of it is more than I can bear!’ 

Julian looked at Mercy. Her face brightened faintly. 
That momentary expression of relief told him how 
truly he would be befriending her if he consented to 
remain in the room. A position of retirement was 
offered to him by a recess formed by the central bay 
window of the library. If he occupied this place they 
could see or not see that he was present, as their own 
inclinations might decide them. 

‘I will stay with you, Horace, as long as you wish 
me to be here.’ Having answered in those terms, he 
stopped as he passed Mercy on his way to the window. 
His quick and kindly insight told him that he might 
still be of some service to her. A hint from him might 
show her the shortest and the easiest way of making 
her confession. Delicately and briefly he gave her the 
hint. ‘The first time I met you,’ he said, ‘I saw that 
your life had had its troubles. Let us hear how those 
troubles began.’ 

He withdrew to his place in the recess. For the first 
time since the fatal evening when she and Grace Rose- 
berry had met in the French cottage, Mercy Merrick 
looked back into the purgatory on earth of her past 
life, and told her sad story simply and truly in these 
words. 



MAGDALEN’S APPRENTICESHIP 299 

My father left her absolutely penniless. He never saw 
her again; and he refused to go to her, when she sent 
to him in her last moments on earth. 

‘ She was back again among the strolling players when 
I first remember her. It was not an unhappy time for 
me. I was the favourite pet and plaything of the poor 
actors. They taught me to sing and to dance, at an 
age when other children are just beginning to learn to 
read. At five years old I was in what is called “the 
profession,” and had made my poor little reputation in 
booths at country fairs. As early as that, Mr. Holm- 
croft, I had begun to live under an assumed name — 
the prettiest name they could invent for me, “to look 
well in the bills.” It was sometimes a hard struggle 
for us, in bad seasons, to keep body and soul together. 
Learning to sing and dance in public often meant 
learning to bear hunger and cold in private, when I was 
apprenticed to the stage — and yet I have lived to look 
back on my days with the strolling players as the hap- 
piest days of my life! 

‘ I was ten years old when the first serious misfortune 
that I can remember fell upon me. My mother died, 
worn out in the prime of her life. And not long after- 
wards the strolling company, brought to the end of its 
resources by a succession of bad seasons, was broken up. 

‘I was left on the world, a nameless, penniless out- 
cast, with one fatal inheritance — God knows I can 
speak of it without vanity, after what I have gone 
through; — the inheritance of my mother’s beauty. 

‘ My only friends were the poor starved-out players. 
Two of them (husband and wife) obtained engagements 
in another company, and I was included in the bargain. 
The new manager by whom I was employed was a 
drunkard and a brute. One night, I made a trifling 



MAGDALEN’S APPRENTICESHIP 301 

the flowers of the field cannot grow without light and 
air to help them. How is a child’s love to grow, with 
nothing to help it? 

'My small savings would have been soon exhausted, 
even if I had been old enough and strong enough to 
protect them myself. As things were, my few shillings 
were taken from me by gipsies. I had no reason to 
complain. They gave me food and the shelter of their 
tents; and they made me of use to them in various 
ways. After awhile, hard times came to the gipsies, 
as they had come to the strolling players. Some of 
them were imprisoned, the rest were dispersed. It was 
the season for hop-gathering at the time. I got em- 
ployment among the hop-pickers next; and that done, 
I went to London with my new friends. 

'I have no wish to weary and pain you by dwelling 
on this part of my childhood in detail. It will be 
enough if I tell you that I ended in begging, under the 
pretence of selling matches in the street. My mother’s 
legacy got me many a sixpence which my matches 
would never have charmed out of the pockets of strangers 
if I had been an ugly child. My face, which was 
destined to be my greatest misfortune in after years, 
w,as my best friend in those days. 

‘Is there anything, Mr. Holmcroft, in the life I am 
now trying to describe which reminds you of a day 
when we were out walking together, not long since ? 

‘I surprised and offended you, I remember; and it 
was not possible for me to explain my conduct at the 
time. Do you recollect the little wandering girl, with 
the miserable faded nosegay in her hand, who ran 
after us and begged for a halfpenny? I shocked you 
by bursting out crying when the child asked us to buy 
her a bit of bread. Now you know why I was so sorry 



MAGDALEN’S APPRENTICESHIP 


303 

as openly as I owned everything else) that I had never 
applied to him for help, in resentment of his treatment 
of my mother. This incident was new, I suppose: it 
led to the appearance of my “case” in the newspapers. 
The reporters further served my interests by describing 
me as “pretty and interesting.” Subscriptions were 
sent to the court. A benevolent married couple, in a 
respectable sphere of life, visited the workhouse to see 
me. I produced a favourable impression on them — 
especially on the wife. I was literally friendless — I 
had no unwelcome relatives to follow me and claim me. 
The wife was childless; the husband was a good- 
natured man. It ended in their taking me away with 
them to try me in service. 

‘ I have always felt the aspiration, no matter how low 
I may have fallen, to struggle upwards to a position 
above me; to rise, in spite of fortune, superior to my 
lot in life. Perhaps some of my father’s pride may be 
at the root of this restless feeling in me. It seems to 
be a part of my nature. It brought me into this house,, 
and it will go with me out of this house. Is it my 
curse, or my blessing ? I am not able to decide. 

‘ On the first night when I slept in my new home, I 
said to myself : “ They have taken me to be their ser- 
vant; I will be something more than that; they shall 
end in taking me for their child.” Before I had been 
a week in the house I was my mistress’s favourite com- 
panion, while my master was at his place of business. 
She was a highly-accomplished woman; greatly her 
husband’s superior in cultivation, and, unfortunately 
for herself, also his superior in years. The love was all 
on her side. Excepting certain occasions on which he 
roused her jealousy, they lived together on sufficiently 
friendly terms. She was one of the many wives who 



MAGDALEN’S APPRENTICESHIP 305 

now transformed her to a perfect fury. She accused 
me of deliberately encouraging him; she declared she 
would turn me out of the house with her own hands. 
Like other easy-tempered men, her husband had re- 
serves of anger in him which it was dangerous to pro- 
voke. When his wife lifted her hand against me he 
lost all self-control on his side. He openly told her that 
life was worth nothing to him, without me; he openly 
avowed his resolution to go with me when I left the 
house. The maddened woman seized him by the arm 
— I saw that, and saw no more. I ran out into the 
street, panic-stricken. A cab was passing. I got into 
it, before he could open the house-door, and drove to 
the only place of refuge I could think of — a small shop, 
kept by the widowed sister of one of our servants. 
Here I obtained shelter for the night. The next day he 
discovered me. He made his vile proposals; he offered 
me the whole of his fortune; he declared his resolution, 
say what I might, to return the next day. That night, 
by help of the good woman who had taken care of me — 
under cover of the darkness, as if I had been to blame! 
— I was secretly removed to the East End of London, 
and placed under the charge of a trustworthy person 
who lived, in a very humble way, by letting lodgings. 

‘ Here, in a little back garret at the top of the house, 
I was thrown again on the world — at an age when it 
was doubly perilous for me to be left to my own re- 
sources to gain the bread I eat, and the roof that 
covered me. 

‘I claim no credit to myself — ^young as I was; placed 
as I was between the easy life of Vice and the hard life 
of Virtue — for acting as I did. The man simply horri- 
fied me: my natural impulse was to escape from him. 
But let it be remembered, before I approach the sad- 



MAGDALEN’S APPRENTICESHIP 307 

could afford it, her purse paid my inevitable expenses 
while I lay helpless. The landlady, moved by her 
example, accepted half the weekly rent of my room. 
The doctor, with the Christian kindness of his profes- 
sion, would take no fees. All that the tenderest care 
could accomplish was lavished on me; my youth and 
my constitution did the rest. I struggled back to life 
— and then I took up my needle again. 

‘ It may surprise you that I should have failed (hav- 
ing an actress for my dearest friend) to use the means 
of introduction thus offered to me to try the stage — 
especially as my childish training had given me, in 
some small degree, a familiarity with the art. 

‘ I had only one motive for shrinking from an appear- 
ance at the theatre; but it was strong enough to induce 
me to subimt to an*y alternative that remained, no mat- 
ter how hopeless it might be. If I showed myself on 
the public stage, my discovery by the man from whom 
I had escaped would be only a question of time. I 
knew him to be habitually a playgoer, and a subscriber to 
a theatrical newspaper. I had even heard him speak of 
the theatre to which my friend was attached, and com- 
pare it advantageously with places pf amusement of far 
higher pretensions. Sooner or later, if I joined the 
company, he would be certain to go and see ‘‘the new 
actress.” The bare thought of it reconciled me to re- 
turning to my needle. Before I was strong enough to 
endure the atmosphere of the crowded workroom, I ob- 
tained permission, as a favour, to resume my occupa- 
tion at home. 

‘ Surely my choice was the choice of a virtuous girl ? 
And yet, the day when I returned to my needle was the 
fatal day of my life. 

‘I had now not only to provide for the wants of the 



MAGDALEN’S APPRENTICESHIP 309 

streets. Now you know — as God is my judge I am 
speaking the truth ! — ^now you know what made me an 
outcast, and in what measure I deserved my disgrace.’ 

Her voice faltered, her resolution failed her, for the 
first time. 

‘ Give me a few minutes,’ she said, in low, pleading^ 
tones. ‘ If I try to go on now, I am afraid I shall cry.’ 

She took the chair which Julian had placed for her, 
turning her face aside so that neither of the men could 
see it. One of her hands was pressed over her bosom, 
the other hung listlessly at her side. 

Julian rose from the place that he had occupied. 
Horace neither moved nor spoke. His head was on his 
breast; the traces of tears on his cheeks suggested that she 
had not quite failed to touch his heart. Would he forgive: 
her? Julian passed on, and approached Mercy’s chair. 

In silence he took the hand which hung at her side. 
In silence he lifted it to his lips and kissed it, as her 
brother might have kissed it. She started, but she 
never looked up. Some strange fear of discovery 
seemed to possess her. ‘Horace?’ she whispered tim- 
idly. Julian made no reply. He went back to his 
place, and allowed her to think it was Horace. 

The sacrifice was immense enough — feeling towards 
her as he felt — to be worthy of the man who made it. 

A few minutes had been all she asked for. In a 
few minutes she turned towards them again. Her 
sweet voice was steady once more; her eyes rested 
softly on Horace as she went on. 

‘What was it possible for a friendless girl in my 
position to do, when the full knowledge of the outrage 
had been revealed to me? 



MAGDALEN’S APPRENTICESHIP 3 1 1 

newspapers, shocks you dreadfully, and is then for- 
gotten again. Take as much pains to make charities 
and asylums known among the people without money, 
as are taken to make a new play, a new journal, or a 
new medicine known among the people with money, 
and you will save many a lost creature who is perishing 
now. 

‘You will forgive and understand me if I say no 
more of this period of my life. Let me pass to the new 
incident in my career which brought me for the second 
time before the public notice in a court of law. 

‘Sad as my experience has been, it has not taught 
me to think ill of human nature. I had found kind 
hearts to feel for me in my former troubles; and I had 
friends — faithful, self-denying, generous friends — among 
my sisters in adversity now. One of these poor women 
(she has gone, I am glad to think, from the world that 
used her so hardly!) especially attracted my sympa- 
thies. She was the gentlest, the most unselfish creature 
I have ever met with. We lived together like sisters. 
More than once, in the dark hours when the thought of 
self-destruction comes to a desperate woman, the image 
of my poor devoted friend, left to suffer alone, rose in 
my mind and restrained me. You will hardly under- 
stand it, but even we had our happy days. When she 
or I had a few shillings to spare, we used to offer one 
another little presents. And, stranger still, we en- 
joyed our simple pleasure in giving and receiving as 
keenly as if we had been the most reputable women 
living! 

‘ One day I took my friend into a shop to buy her a 
ribbon — only a bow for her dress. She was to choose 
it, and I was to pay for it, and it was to be the prettiest 
ribbon that money could buy. 




MAGDALEN’S APPRENTICESHIP 313 

grace is now complete, Mr. Holmcroft. No matter 
whether I was innocent or not; the shame of it remains 
— I have been imprisoned for theft. 

‘The matron of the prison was the next person who 
took an interest in me. She reported favourably of 
my behaviour to the authorities; and when I had 
served my time (as the phrase was among us) she gave 
me a letter to the kind friend and guardian of my later 
years — to the lady who is coming here to take me back 
with her to the Refuge. 

‘From this time the story of my life is little more 
than the story of a woman’s vain efforts to recover her 
lost place in the world. 

‘The matron, on receiving me into the Refuge, 
frankly acknowledged that there were terrible obstacles 
in my way. But she saw that I was sincere, and she 
felt a good woman’s sympathy and compassion for me. 
On^y side, I did not shrink from beginning the slow 
and weary journey back again to a reputable life, from 
the humblest starting-point' — from domestic service. 
After first earning my new character in the Refuge, I 
obtained a trial in a respectable house. I worked hard, 
and worked uncomplainingly; but my mother’s fatal 
legacy was against me from the first. My personal ap- 
pearance excited remark; my manners and habits were 
not the manners and habits of the women among whom 
my lot was cast. I tried one place after another — 
always with the same results. Suspicion and jealousy 
I could endure: but I was defenceless when curiosity 
assailed me in its turn. Sooner or later enquiry led to 
discovery. Sometimes the servants threatened to give 
warning in a body — and I was obliged to go. Some- 
times, when there was a young man in the family, 
scandal pointed at me and at him — and again I was 



MAGDALEN’S APPRENTICESHIP 315 

know the temptation that tried me when the shell 
struck its victim in the French cottage. There she lay 
— dead ! Her name was untainted. Her future prom- 
ised me the reward which had been denied to the honest 
efforts of a penitent woman. My lost place in the 
world was offered back to me on the one condition, 
that I stooped to win it by a fraud. I had no prospect 
to look forward to; I had no friend near to advise me 
and to save me; the fairest years of my womanhood 
had been ’wasted in the vain struggle to recover my 
good name. Such was my position when the possibility 
of personating Miss Roseberry first forced itself on my 
mind. Impulsively, recklessly — wickedly, if you like — 
I seized the opportunity, and let you pass me through 
the German lines under Miss Roseberry’s name. Ar- 
rived in England, having had time to reflect, I made 
my first and last effort to draw back before it was too 
late. I went to the Refuge, and stopped on the oppo- 
site side of the street looking at it. The old hopeless 
life of irretrievable disgrace confronted me as I fixed 
my eyes on the familiar door; the horror of returning 
to that life was more than I could force myself to en- 
dure. An empty cab passed me at the moment. The 
driver held up his hand. In sheer despair I stopped 
him; and when he said Where to?” — in sheer despair 
again, I answered, “ Mablethorpe House.” 

‘ Of what I have suffered in secret since my own suc- 
cessful deception established me under Lady Janet’s 
care I shall say nothing. Many things which must 
have surprised you in my conduct are made plain to 
you by this time. You must have noticed long since 
that I was not a happy woman. Now you know why. 

‘My confession is made; my conscience has spoken 
at last. You are released from your promise to me — 




SENTENCE PRONOUNCED 


317 


He wB,ited. Horace never answered him. 

Mercy’s eyes turned fearfully on Julian. His heart 
was the heart that felt for her! His words were the 
words which comforted and pardoned her! When she 
looked back again at Horace, it was with an effort. 
His last hold on her was lost. In her inmost mind a 
thought rose unbidden — a thought which was not to be 
repressed. ‘Can I ever have loved this man?’ 

She advanced a step towards him; it was not possi- 
ble, even yet, to completely forget the past. She held 
out her hand. 

He rose, on his side — without looking at her. 

‘Before we part for ever,’ she said to him, ‘will you 
take my hand as a token that you forgive me ? ’ 

He hesitated. He half lifted his hand. The next 
moment the generous impulse died away in him. In 
its place came the mean fear of what might happen if 
he trusted himself to the dangerous fascination of her 
touch. His hand dropped again at his side; he turned 
away quickly. 

‘I can’t forgive her!’ he said. 

With that horrible confession — without even a last 
look at her’ — he left the room. 

At the moment when he opened the door, Julian’s 
contempt for him burst its way through all restraints. 

‘Horace,’ he said, ‘I pity you!’ 

As the words escaped him, he looked back at Mercy. 
She had turned aside from both of them — she had re- 
tired to a distant part of the library. The first bitter 
foretaste of what was in store for her when she faced the 
world again had come to her from Horace ! The energy 
which had sustained her thus far, quailed before the 
dreadful prospect — doubly dreadful to a woman — of 
obloquy and contempt. Hopeless and helpless, she 



SENTENCE PRONOUNCED 


319 

news.’ They were inclined to suspect— though he was 
certainly rather young for it — that her ladyship’s 
nephew was in a fair way of preferment in the church. 
* * * * * 

Mercy seated herself on 'the couch. 

There are limits, in the physical organisation of man, 
to the action of pain. When suffering has reached a 
given point of intensity, the nervous sensibility becomes 
incapable of feeling more. The rule of Nature in this 
respect, applies not only to sufferers in the body, but to 
sufferers in the mind as well. Grief, rage, terror, have 
also their appointed limits. The moral sensibility, like 
the nervous sensibility, reaches its period of absolute 
exhaustion, and feels no more. 

The capacity for suffering in Mercy had attained its 
term. Alone in the library, she could feel the physical 
relief of repose; she could vaguely recall Julian’s part- 
ing words to her, and sadly wonder what they meant — 
and she could do no more. 

An interval passed : a brief interval of perfect rest. 

She recovered herself sufficiently to be able to look 
at her watch and to estimate the lapse of time that 
might yet pass before Julian returned to her as he had 
promised. While her mind was still languidly follow- 
ing this train of thought, she was disturbed by the ring- 
ing of a bell in the hall, used to summon the servant 
whose duties were connected with that part of the 
house. In leaving the library, Horace had gone out by 
the door which led into the hall, and had failed to close 
it. She plainly heard the bell — and a moment later 
(more plainly still) she heard Lady Janet’s voice! 

She started to her feet. Lady Janet’s letter was still 
in the pocket of her apron — the letter which impera- 
tively commanded her to abstain from making the very 



SENTENCE PRONOUNCED 


321 


‘Where is Miss Roseberry?’ 

‘In the library, my lady.’ 

Mercy returned to the couch. She could stand no 
longer; she had not resolution enough left to lift her 
eyes to the door. 

Lady Janet came in more rapidly than usual. She 
advanced to the couch, and tapped Mercy playfully on 
the cheek with two of her fingers. 

‘You lazy child! Not dressed for dinner? Oh, fie, 
fiel’ 

Her tone was as playfully affectionate as the action 
which had accompanied her words. In speechless as- 
tonishment Mercy looked up at her. 

Always remarkable for the taste and splendour of 
her dress. Lady Janet had, on this occasion, surpassed 
herself. There she stood revealed in her grandest 
velvet, her richest jewellery, her finest lace — with no 
one to entertain at the dinner-table but the ordinary 
members of the circle at Mablethorpe House. Noticing 
this as strange to begin with, Mercy further observed, 
for the first time in her experience, that Lady Janet’s 
eyes avoided meeting hers. The old lady took her place 
companionably on the couch; she ridiculed her ‘lazy 
child’s’ plain dress, without an ornament of any sort 
on it, with her best grace; she affectionately put her arm 
round Mercy’s waist, and re-arranged with her own hand 
the disordered locks of Mercy’s hair — but the instant 
Mercy herself looked at her. Lady Janet’s eyes dis- 
covered something supremely interesting in the familiar 
objects that surrounded her on the library walls. 

How were these changes to be interpreted ? To what 
possible conclusion did they point? 

Julian’s profounder knowledge of human nature, if 
Julian had been present, might have found the clue to 



SENTENCE PRONOUNCED 


323 


quillity, to forbid that frank avowal of the truth which 
her finer sense of duty had spontaneously bound her to 
make?’ Those were the torturing questions in Lady 
Janet’s mind, while her arm was wound affectionately 
round Mercy’s waist, while her fingers were busying 
themselves familiarly with the arrangement of Mercy’s 
hair. Thence, and thence only, sprang the impulse 
which set her talking, with an uneasy affectation of 
frivolity, of any topic within the range of conversation 
— so long as it related to the future, and completely 
ignored the present and the past. 

‘The winter here is unendurable,’ Lady Janet began. 
‘ I have been thinking, Grace, about what we had better 
do next’ 

Mercy started. Lady Janet had called her ‘ Grace.’ 
Lady Janet was still deliberately assuming to be inno- 
cent of the faintest suspicion of the truth. 

‘No!’ resumed her ladyship, affecting to misunder- 
stand Mercy’s movement, ‘you are not to go up now 
and dress. There is no time, and I am quite ready to 
excuse you. You are a foil to me, my dear. You have 
reached the perfection of shabbiness. Ah! I remember 
when I had my whims and fancies too, and when I 
looked well in anything I wore, just as you do. No 
more of that. As I was saying, I have been thinking 
and planning what we are to do. We really can’t stay 
here. Cold one day, and hot the next — what a climate! 
As for society, what do we lose if we go away? There 
is no such thing as society now. Assemblies of well- 
dressed mobs meet at each other’s houses, tear each 
other’s clothes, tread on each other’s toes. If you are 
particularly lucky you sit on the staircase, you get a 
tepid ice, and you hear vapid talk in slang phrases all 
round you. There is modern society. If we had a 



SENTENCE PRONOUNCED 


325 

do. We will go to Paris in the first place. My excellent 
Migliore, prince of couriers, shall be the only person in 
attendance. He shall take a lodging for us in one of 
the unfashionable quarters of Paris. We will rough it, 
Grace (to use the slang phrase), merely for a change. 
We will lead what they call a “ Bohemian life.” I know 
plenty of writers and painters and actors in Paris — the 
liveliest society in the world, my dear, until one gets 
tired of them. We will dine at the restaurant, and go 
to the play, and drive about in shabby little hired 
carriages. And when it begins to get monotonous 
(which it is only too sure to do) we will spread our 
wings and fly to Italy, and cheat the winter in that way. 
There is a plan for you! Migliore is in town. I will 
send to him this evening, and we will start to-morrow.^ 

Mercy made another effort. 

‘ I entreat your ladyship to pardon me,’ she resumed. 
‘I have something serious to say. I am afraid ’ 

‘I understand! You are afraid of crossing the 
Channel, and you don’t like to say so plainly. Pooh! 
The passage barely lasts two hours; we will shut our- 
selves up in a private cabin. I will send at once — the 
courier may be engaged. Ring the bell.’ 

‘Lady Janet, I must submit to my hard lot. I can- 
not hope to associate myself again with any future 
plans of yours ’ 

‘What! you are afraid of our “Bohemian life” in 
Paris? Observe this, Grace! If there is one thing I 
hate more than another, it is “an old head on young 
shoulders.” I say no more. Ring the bell.’ 

‘This cannot go on. Lady Janet! No words can say 
how unworthy I feel of your kindness, how ashamed I 
am ’ 

‘Upon my honour, my dear, I agree with you. You 




SENTENCE PRONOUNCED 


327 


‘Yes, Lady Janet.’ 

‘Am I acquainted with her?’ 

‘I think not, Lady Janet.’ 

‘You appear to be agitated. Does your visitor bring 
bad news ? Is there anything that I can do for you ?’ 

‘You can add — immeasurably add, madam — to all 
your past kindness, if you will only bear with me and 
forgive me.’ 

‘Bear with you, and forgive you? I don’t under- 
stand.’ 

‘I will try to explain. Whatever else you may think 
of me. Lady Janet, for God’s sake don’t think me un- 
grateful!’ 

Lady Janet held up her hand for silence. 

‘I dislike explanations,’ she said, sharply. ‘Nobody 
ought to know that better than you. Perhaps the 
lady’s letter will explain for you. Why have you not 
looked at it yet?’ 

‘I am in great trouble, madam, as you noticed just 
now ’ 

‘Have you any objection to my knowing who your 
visitor is?’ 

‘No, Lady Janet.’ 

‘Let me look at her card, then.’ 

Mercy gave the Matron’s card to Lady Janet, as she 
had given the Matron’s telegram to Horace. 

Lady Janet read the name on the card — considered 
— decided that it was a name quite unknown to her — 
and looked next at the address: ‘Western District 
Refuge, Milburn Road.’ 

‘A lady connected with a Refuge?’ she said, speak- 
ing to herself; ‘and calling here by appointment — if I 
remember the servant’s message? A strange time to 
choose, if she has come for a subscription!’ 



SENTENCE PRONOUNCED 


329 

left helpless on the world. Our circular will inform you 
that I am able to meet your wishes. My first errand 
this evening in your neighbourhood was to take charge 
of a poor child — a little girl — who stands sadly in need 
of our care. I have ventured to bring her with me, 
thinking she might help to reconcile you to the coming 
change in your life. You will find us both waiting to 
go back with you to the old house. I write this instead 
of saying it, hearing from the servant that you are not 
alone, and being unwilling to intrude myself, as a 
stranger, on the lady of the house.’ 

Lady Janet read the pencilled lines, as she had read 
the printed sentences, aloud. Without a word of com- 
ment, she laid the letter where she had laid the card; 
and, rising from her seat, stood for a moment in silence, 
looking at Mercy. The sudden change in her which 
the letter had produced — quietly as it had taken place — 
was terrible to see. On the frowning brow, in the 
flashing eyes, on the hardened lips, outraged love and 
outraged pride looked down on the lost woman, and 
said, as if in words, ‘You have roused us at last.’ 

‘ If that letter means anything,’ she began, ‘ it means 
you are about to leave my house. There can be but 
one reason for your taking such a step as that.’ 

‘It is the only atonement I can make, madam — — ’ 

‘I see another letter on your lap. Is it my letter ?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Have you read it?’ 

‘I have read it.’ 

‘Have you seen Horace HolmcroftP’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Have you told Horace Holmcroft— ’ 

‘Oh, Lady Janet ’ 

‘ Don’t interrupt me. Have you told Horace Holm- 



SENTENCE PRONOUNCED 


331 

old disgrace is falling on me once more. We shall 
never meet again. Even though I have not deserved 
it, let my repentance plead with you! Say you forgive 
me!’ 

Lady Janet turned round on the threshold of the 
door. 

‘I never forgive ingratitude,’ she said. ‘Go back to 
the Refuge.’ 

The door opened, and closed on her. Mercy was 
alone again in the room. 

Unforgiven by Horace, unforgiven by Lady Janet! 
She put her hands to her burning head — and tried to 
think. Oh, for the cool air of the night! Oh, for the 
friendly shelter of the Refuge! She could feel those 
sad longings in her; it was impossible to think. 

She rang the bell — and shrank back the instant she 
had done it. Had she any right to take that liberty? 
She ought to have thought of it before she rang. Habit 
— all habit. How many hundreds of times she had 
rung the bell at Mablethorpe House! 

The servant came in. She amazed the man — she 
spoke to him so timidly: she even apologised for 
troubling him! 

‘I am sorry to disturb you. Will you be so kind as 
to say to the lady that I am ready for her ? ’ 

‘Wait to give that message,’ said a voice behind 
them, ‘until you hear the bell rung again.’ 

Mercy looked round in amazement. Julian had re- 
turned to the library by the dining-room door. 



THE LAST TRIAL 


333 

to him, feeling a vague conviction that he was kinder 
to her than ever — and feeling no more. 

‘I must thank you for the last time,’ she said. ‘As 
long as life is left, my gratitude will be a part of my 
life. Let me go. While I have some strength left, let 
me go!’ 

She tried to leave him, and ring the bell. He held 
her hand firmly, and drew her closer to him. 

‘To the Refuge?’ he asked. 

‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Home again!’ 

‘Don’t say that!’ he exclaimed. ‘I can’t bear to 
hear it. Don’t call the Refuge your home!’ 

‘What else is it? Where else can I go?’ 

‘ I have come here to tell you. I said, if you remem- 
ber, I had something to propose.’ 

She felt the fervent pressure of his hand; she saw 
the mounting enthusiasm flashings in his eyes. Her 
weary mind roused itself a little. She began to tremble 
under the electric influence of his touch. 

‘Something to propose?’ she repeated. ‘What is 
there to propose?’ 

‘Let me ask you a question on my side. What have 
you done to-day?’ 

‘You know what I have done — it is your work,’ she 
answered humbly. ‘Why return to it now?’ 

‘I return to it for the last time; I return to it, with 
a purpose which you will soon understand. You have 
abandoned your marriage engagement; you have for- 
feited Lady Janet’s love; you have ruined all your 
worldly prospects — you are now returning, self-devoted, 
to a life which you have yourself described as a life 
without hope. And all this you have done of your own 
free will — at a time when you are absolutely secure of 
your position in the house — for the sake of speaking 




THE LAST TRIAL 


335 

He eagerly advanced; he held out his arms to her 
in breathless, speechless joy. She drew back from him 
once more with a look that horrified him — a look of 
blank despair. 

‘Am I fit to be your wife?’ she asked. ‘Must I 
remind you of what you owe to your high position, 
your spotless integrity, your famous name? Think of 
all you have done for me, and then think of the black 
ingratitude of it if I ruin you for life by consenting to 
our marriage — if I selfishly, cruelly, wickedly, drag you 
down to the level of a woman like me?’ 

‘I raise you to my level when I make you my 
wife, he answered. ‘For Heaven’s sake do me justice! 
Don’t refer me to the world and its opinions. It 
rests with you, and you alone, to make the misery 
or the happiness of my life. The world! Good 
God! What can the world give me in exchange for 
You?’ 

She clasped her hands imploringly; the tears flowed 
fast over her cheeks. 

‘Oh, have pity on my weakness!’ she cried. ‘Kind- 
est, best of men, help me to do my hard duty towards 
you ! it is so hard, after all that I have suffered — when 
my heart is yearning for^peace and happiness and love!’ 
she checked herself, shuddering at the words that had 
escaped her. ‘ Remember how Mr. Holmcroft has used 
me! Remember how Lady Janet has left me! Re- 
member what I have told you of my life! The scorn 
of every creature you know would strike at you through 
me. No! no! no! Not a word more. Spare me! pity 
me! leave me!’ 

Her voice failed her; sobs choked her utterance. He 
sprang to her and took her in his arms. She was in- 
capable of resisting him; but there was no yielding in 





THE LAST TRIAL 


337 

The servant answered the bell. At the moment 
when he opened the door a woman’s voice was audible, 
in the hall, speaking to him. 

' Let the child go in,’ the voice said. ‘ I will wait here.’ 

The child appeared — the same forlorn little creature 
who had reminded Mercy of her own early years, on 
the day when she and Horace Holmcroft had been out 
for their walk. 

There was no beauty in this child; no halo of ro- 
mance brightened the commonplace horror of her story. 
She came cringing into the room, staring stupidly at the 
magnificence all round her — the daughter of the Lon- 
don streets! the pet creation of the laws of political 
economy! the savage and terrible product of a worn- 
out system of government and of a civilisation rotten 
to its core! Cleaned for the first time in her life; fed 
sufficiently for the first time in her life; dressed in 
clothes instead of rags for the first time in her life, 
Mercy’s sister in adversity crept fearfully over the 
beautiful carpet, and stopped wonderstruck before the 
marbles of an inlaid table — a blot of mud on the splen- 
dour of the room. 

Mercy turned from Julian to meet the child. The 
woman’s heart, hungering in its horrible isolation for 
something that it might harmlessly love, welcomed the 
rescued waif of the streets as a consolation sent from 
God. She caught the stupefied little creature up in 
her arms. ‘Kiss me!’ she whispered in the reckless 
agony of the moment. ‘Call me sister!’ The child 
stared vacantly. Sister meant nothing to her mind but 
an older girl who was strong enough to beat her. 

She put the child down again, and turned for a last 
look at the man whose happiness she had wrecked — in 
pity to him. 




'It doesn’t end with this world,’ she whispered; 'there’s a 
better world to come.’ 



THE LAST TRIAL 


339 

He turned to the servant, reckless of what his face 
might betray. 

‘Where is Lady Janet?’ 

‘In the dining-room, sir.’ 

He reflected for a moment. His own influence had 
failed. Through what other influence could he now 
hope to reach her ? As the question crossed his mind, 
the light broke on him. He saw the way back to her 
— through the influence of Lady Janet. 

‘Her ladyship is waiting, sir.’ 

Julian entered the dining-room. 

THE END OF THE SECOND SCENE 





EPILOGUE 


CONTAINING 

SELECTIONS FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE 
OF MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY AND 
MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT 

TO WHICH ARE ADDED 
EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF THE 
REVEREND JULIAN GRAY 





I 


From Mr. Horace Holmcroft to Miss Grace 
Roseberry 

‘I hasten to thank you, dear Miss Roseberry, for 
your very kind letter, received by yesterday’s mail from 
Canada. Believe me, I appreciate your generous readi- 
ness to pardon and forget what I so rudely said to you 
at a time when the arts of an adventuress had blinded 
me to the truth. In the grace which has forgiven me 
I recognise the inbred sense of justice of a true lady. 
Birth and breeding can never fail to assert themselves; 
I believe in them, thank God, more firmly than ever. 

‘You ask me to keep you informed of the progress of 
Julian Gray’s infatuation, and of the course of conduct 
pursued towards him by Mercy Merrick. 

‘If you had not favoured me by explaining your 
object, I might have felt some surprise at receiving, 
from a lady in your position, such a request as this. 
But the motives by which you describe yourself as being 
actuated are beyond dispute. The existence of Society, 
as you truly say, is threatened by the present lament- 
able prevalence of Liberal ideas throughout the length 
and breadth of the land. We can only hope to protect 
ourselves against impostors interested in gaining a 
position among persons of our rank, by becoming in 
some sort (unpleasant as it may be) familiar with the 
arts by which imposture too frequently succeeds. If 
we wish to know to what daring lengths cunning can 
343 




EPILOGUE 


345 

‘To return to Julian Gray. Innocent of instigating 
his aunt’s first visit to the Refuge, he is guilty of having 
induced her to go there for the second time, the day 
after I had despatched my last letter to you. Lady 
Janet’s object on this occasion was neither more nor 
less than to plead her nephew’s cause as humble suitor 
for the hand of Mercy Merrick. Imagine the descend- 
ant of one of the oldest families in England inviting an 
adventuress in a Refuge to honour a clergyman of the 
Church of England by becoming his wife! In what 
times do we live! My dear mother shed tears of shame 
when she heard of it. How you would love and admire 
my mother! 

‘ I dined at Mablethorpe House by previous appoint- 
ment, on the day when Lady Janet returned from her 
degrading errand. 

‘“Well!” I said, waiting of course until the servant 
was out of the room. 

‘“Well,” Lady Janet answered, “Julian was quite 
right.” 

‘“Quite right in what?” 

‘“In saying that the earth holds no nobler woman 
than Mercy Merrick.” 

‘“Has she refused him again?” 

‘ “ She has refused him again.” 

‘“Thank God!” I felt it fervently, and I said so, 
fervently. Lady Janet laid down her knife and fork, 
and fixed one of her fierce looks on me. 

“‘It may not be your fault, Horace,” she said, “if 
your nature is incapable of comprehending what is 
great and generous in other natures higher than yours. 
But the least you can do is to distrust your own capac- 
ity of appreciation. For the future keep your opinions 
(on questions which you don’t understand) modestly to 



EPILOGUE 


347 


magnanimous sentiments flowed from her lips. She de- 
clared that her future life was devoted to acts of charity, 
typified of course by the foundling infant and the ugly 
little girl. However she might personally suffer, what- 
ever might be the sacrifice of her own feelings — observe 
how artfully this was put, to insinuate that she was her- 
self in love with him! — she could not accept from Mr. 
Julian Gray an honour of which she was unworthy. 
Her gratitude to him and her interest in him alike 
forbade her to compromise his brilliant future, by con- 
senting to a marriage which would degrade him in the 
estimation of all his friends. She thanked him (with 
tears); she thanked Lady Janet (with more tears); but 
she dare not, in the interests of his honour and his 
happiness, accept the hand that he offered to her. God 
bless and comfort him; and God help her to bear with 
her hard lot. 

‘The object of this contemptible comedy is plain 
enough to my mind. She is simply holding off (Julian, 
as you know, is a poor man), until the influence of 
Lady Janet’s persuasion is backed by the opening of 
Lady Janet’s purse. In one word — Settlements! But 
for the profanity of the woman’s language, and the 
really lamentable credulity of the poor old lady, the 
whole thing would make a fit subject for a burlesque. 

‘ But the saddest part of the story is still to come. 

‘ In due course of time, the lady’s decision was com- 
municated to Julian Gray. He took leave of his senses 
on the spot. Can you believe it ? — he has resigned his 
curacy! At a time when the church is thronged every 
Sunday to hear him preach, this madman shuts the 
door and walks out of the pulpit. Even Lady Janet 
was not far enough gone in folly to abet him in this. 
She remonstrated, like the rest of his friends. Per- 





EPILOGUE 


349 

hardly ever completely free from epidemic disease. In 
this horrible place, and among these dangerous people, 
Julian is now employing himself from morning to night. 
None of his old friends ever see him. Since he joined 
the Mission he has not even called on Lady Janet 
Roy. 

‘My pledge is redeemed— the facts are before you. 
Am I wrong in taking my gloomy view of the prospect? 
I cannot forget that this unhappy man was once my 
friend; and I really see no hope for him in the future. 
Deliberately self-exposed to the violence of ruffians and 
the outbreak of disease, who is to extricate him from 
his shocking position? The one person who can do it 
is the person whose association with him would be his 
ruin — Mercy Merrick. Heaven only knows what 
disasters it may be my painful duty to communicate to 
you in my next letter ! 

‘You are so kind as to ask me to tell you something 
about myself and my plans. 

‘ I have very little to say on either head. After what 
I have suffered — my feelings trampled on, my confidence 
betrayed — I am as yet hardly capable of deciding what 
I shall do. Returning to my old profession — to the 
army — is out of the question, in these levelling days, 
when any obscure person who can pass an examination 
may call himself my brother officer, and may one day 
perhaps command me as my superior in rank. If I 
think of any career, it is the career of diplomacy. 
Birth and breeding have not quite disappeared as essen- 
tial qualifications in that branch of the public service. 
But I have decided nothing at yet. 

‘My mother and sisters, in the event of your re- 
turning to England, desire me to say that it will afford 
them the greatest pleasure to make your acquaintance. 



EPILOGUE 


351 

degraded and designing woman. My interest in her is 
purely religious. To persons of my devout turn of 
mind, she is an awful warning. When I feel Satan 
near me — it will be such a means of grace to think of 
Mercy Merrick! 

‘Poor Lady Janet! I noticed those signs of mental 
decay to which you so feelingly allude, at the last inter- 
view I had with her in Mablethorpe House. If you 
can find an opportunity, will you say that I wish her 
well, here and hei'eafter? and will you please add, that 
I do not omit to remember her in my prayers ? 

‘There is just a chance of my visiting England 
towards the close of the autumn. My fortunes have 
changed since I wrote last. I have been received as 
reader and companion by a lady who is the wife of one 
of our high judicial functionaries in this part of the 
world. I do not take much interest in him; he is 
what they call a “self-made man.” His wife is charm- 
ing. Besides being a person of highly intellectual 
tastes, she is greatly her husband’s superior — as you 
will understand when I tell you that she is related to 
the Gommerys of Pommery; not the Pommerys of 
Gommery, who (as your knowledge of our old families 
will inform you) only claim kindred with the younger 
branch of that ancient race. 

‘ In the elegant and improving companionship which 
I now enjoy, I should feel quite happy but for one 
drawback. The climate of Canada is not favourable 
to my kind patroness; and her medical advisers recom- 
mend her to winter in London. In this event, I am to 
have the privilege of accompanying her. Is it neces- 
sary to add that my first visit will be paid at your house ? 
I feel already united by sympathy to your mother and 
your sisters. There is a sort of freemasonry among 


4 




EPILOGUE 


353 

his labours in the district fever broke out. We only heard 
that Julian had been struck down by the epidemic when 
it was too late to remove him from the lodging that 
he occupied in the neighbourhood. I made enquiries 
personally the moment the news reached us. The 
doctor in attendance refused to answer for his life. 

‘In this alarming state of things, poor Lady Janet, 
impulsive and unreasonable as usual, insisted on leav- 
ing Mablethorpe House and taking up her residence 
near her nephew. 

‘Finding it impossible to persuade her of the folly 
of removing from home and its comforts at her age, I 
felt it my duty to accompany her. We found accom- 
modation (such as it was) in a riverside inn, used by 
ship-captains and commercial travellers. I took it on 
myself to provide the best medical assistance; Lady 
Janet’s insane prejudices against doctors impelling her 
to leave this important part of the arrangements en- 
tirely in my hands. 

‘It is needless to weary you by entering into details 
on the subject of Julian’s illness. 

‘The fever pursued thet ordinary course, and was 
characterised by the usual intervals of delirium and 
exhaustion succeeding each other. Subsequent events, 
which it is, unfortunately, necessary to relate to you, 
leave me no choice but to dwell (as briefly as possible) 
on the painful subject of the delirium. In other cases, 
the wanderings of fever-stricken people present, I am 
told, a certain variety of range. In Julian’s case they 
were limited to one topic. He talked incessantly of 
Mercy Merrick. His invariable petition to his medical 
attendants entreated them to send for her to nurse him. 
Day and night that one idea was in his mind, and that 
one name on his lips. 



EPILOGUE 


355 

London, who is not making his five hundred a year — 
need I stop to inform you of her ladyship’s decision? 
You know her; and you will only too well understand 
that her next proceeding was to pay a third visit to the 
Refuge. 

‘Two hours later — I give you my word of honour I 
am not exaggerating — Mercy Merrick was established 
at Julian’s bedside. 

‘The excuse, of course, was that it was her duty not 
to let any private scruples of her own stand in the way, 
when a medical authority had declared that she might 
save the patient’s life. You will not be surprised to 
hear that I withdrew from the scene. The physician 
followed my example — after having written his soothing 
prescription, and having been grossly insulted by the 
local practitioner’s refusal to make use of it. I went 
back in the doctor’s carriage. He spoke most feelingly 
and properly. Without giving any positive opinion, I 
could see that he had abandoned all hope of Julian’s 
recovery. “We are in the hands of Providence, Mr. 
Holmcroft” — those were his last words as he set me 
down at my mother’s door. 

‘I have hardly the heart to go on. If I studied my 
own wishes, I should feel inclined to stop here. 

‘Let me at least hasten to the end. In two or three 
days’ time, I received my first intelligence of the patient 
and his nurse. Lady Janet informed me that he had 
recognised her. When I heard this I felt prepared for 
what was to come. The next report announced that 
he was gaining strength, and the next that he was out 
of danger. Upon this. Lady Janet returned to Mable- 
thorpe House. I called there a week ago — and heard 
that he had been removed to the seaside. I called 
yesterday — and received the latest information from 



EPILOGUE 


357 

sex. I feel that my mother and my sisters are doubly 
precious to me now. May I add, on the side of conso- 
lation, that I prize with hardly inferior gratitude, the 
privilege of corresponding with you ? 

‘Farewell, for the present. I am too rudely shaken 
in my most cherished convictions, I am too depressed 
and disheartened, to write more. All good wishes go 
with you, dear Miss Roseberry, until we meet. 

‘Most truly yours, 

‘ Horace Holmcroft.’ 


IV 

Extracts from the Diary of The Reverend Julian 
Gray 

FIRST EXTRACT 

... ‘A month to-day since we were married! I 
have only one thing to say: I would cheerfully go 
through all that I have suffered, to live this one month 
over again. I never knew what happiness was until 
now. And better still, I have persuaded Mercy that it 
is all her doing. I have scattered her misgivings to the 
winds; she is obliged to submit to evidence, and to 
own that she can make the happiness of my life. 

‘We go back to London to-morrow. She regrets 
leaving the tranquil retirement of this remote seaside 
place — she dreads change. I care nothing for it. It is 
all one to me where I go so long as my wife is with me.’ 

SECOND EXTRACT 

‘The first cloud has risen. I entered the room un- 
expectedly just now, and found her in tears. 

‘ With considerable difficulty I persuaded her to tell 



EPILOGUE 


359 

mortification rested on my mind. In this way I have, 
to some extent, succeeded in composing my poor dar- 
ling. But the wound has been inflicted, and the wound 
is felt. There is no disguising that result. I must 
face it boldly. 

‘Trifling as this incident is in my estimation, it has 
decided me on one point already. In shaping my 
future course, I am now resolved to act on my own 
convictions — in preference to taking the well-meant 
advice of such friends as are still left to me. 

‘Most of my success in life has been gained in the 
pulpit. I am what is termed a popular preacher — but 
I have never, in my secret self, felt any exultation in 
my own notoriety, or any extraordinary respect for the 
means by which it has been won. In the first place, 
I have a very low idea of the importance of oratory as 
an intellectual accomplishment. There is no other 
art in which the conditions of success are so easy of 
attainment; there is no other art in the practice of 
which so much that is purely superficial passes itself 
off habitually for something that claims to be profound. 
Then again, how poor it is in the results which it 
achieves! Take my own case. How often (for ex- 
ample) have I thundered with all my heart and soul 
against the wicked extravagance of dress amongst 
women — against their filthy false hair, and their nau- 
seous powders and paints I How often (to take another 
example) have I denounced the mercenary and ma- 
terial spirit of the age, the habitual corruptions and dis- 
honesties of commerce, in high places and in low!: 
What good have I done? I have delighted the very 
people whom it was my object to rebuke. “What a 
charming sermon ! “ More eloquent than ever ! ” “I 
used to dread the sermon at the other church — do you 



EPILOGUE 


361 

Mercy, whom I love better than my own life! Women 
live, poor things, in the opinions of others. I have had 
one warning already of what my wife is likely to suffer 
at the hands of my “friends” — Heaven forgive me for 
misusing the word! Shall I deliberately expose her to 
fresh mortifications? — and this for the sake of return- 
ing to a career the rewards of which I no longer prize? 
No! We will both be happy — we will both be free! 
God is merciful; Nature is kind; Love is true, in the 
New World as well as the Old. To the New World we 
will go!’ 

THIRD EXTRACT 

‘ I hardly know whether I have done right or wrong. 
I mentioned yesterday to Lady Janet the cold reception 
of me on my return to London, and the painful sense of 
it felt by my wife. 

‘ My aunt looks at the matter from her own peculiar 
piont of view, and makes light of it accordingly. “You 
never did, and never will, understand Society, Julian,” 
said her ladyship. “These poor stupid people simply 
don’t know what to do. They are waiting to be told 
by a person of distinction whether they are, or are not, 
to recognise your marriage. In plain English, they are 
waiting to be led by Me. Consider it done. I will 
lead them.” 

‘ I thought my aunt was joking. The event of to-day 
has shown me that she is terribly in earnest. Lady 
Janet has issued invitations for one of her grand balls 
at Mablethorpe House; and she has caused the report 
to be circulated everywhere that the object of the 
festival is “to celebrate the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. 
Julian Gray!” 

H at first refused to be present. To my amazement 



EPILOGUE 


363 

pages of my diary, written in past years, will show 
plainly enough that it is not she who is driving me away 
from England. She will see the longing in me for other 
work and other scenes, expressing itself over and over 
again, long before the time when we first met. 

FIFTH EXTRACT 

‘Mercy’s ball-dress — a present from kind Lady Janet 
— is finished. I was allowed to see the first trial, or 
preliminary rehearsal, of this work of art. I don’t in 
the least understand the merits of silk and lace; put 
one thing I know — my wife will be the most beautiful 
woman at the ball. 

‘The same day I called on Lady Janet to thank her, 
and encountered a new revelation of the wayward and 
original character of my dear old aunt. 

‘She was on the point of tearing up a letter when I 
went into her room. Seeing me, she suspended her 
purpose and handed me the letter. It was in Mercy’s 
handwriting. Lady Janet pointed to a passage on the 
last page. “Tell your wife, with my love,” she said, 
“that I am the most obstinate woman of the two. I 
positively refuse to read her, as I positively refuse to 
listen to her, whenever she attempts to return to that 
one subject. Now give me the letter back.” I gave 
it back, and saw it torn up before my face. The one 
topic prohibited to Mercy as sternly as ever is still the 
personation of Grace Roseberry! Nothing could have 
been more naturally introduced, or more delicately 
managed, than my wife’s brief reference to the subject. 
No matter. The reading of the first line was enough. 
Lady Janet shut her eyes and destroyed the letter — 
Lady Janet will live and die absolutely ignorant of the 



EPILOGUE 365 

hostess. They did their duty — no, overdid it, is per- 
haps the better phrase. 

‘I really had no adequate idea of the coarseness and 
rudeness which have filtered their way through society 
in these later times until I saw the reception accorded 
to my wife. The days of prudery and prejudice are 
days gone by. Excessive amiability and excessive 
liberality are the two favourite assumptions of the 
modern generation. To see the women expressing 
their liberal forgetfulness of my wife’s misfortunes, and 
the men their amiable anxiety to encourage her husband 
— to hear the same set phrases repeated in every room : 
‘‘So charmed to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Gray; 
so much obliged to dear Lady Janet for giving us this 
opportunity! Julian, old man, what a beautiful creat- 
ure! I envy you; upon my honour, I envy you!” — 
to receive this sort of welcome, emphasised by obtru- 
sive hand-shakings, sometimes actually by downright 
kissings of my wife, and then to look round and see 
that not one in thirty of these very people had brought 
their unmarried daughters to the ball, was, I honestly 
believe, to see civilised human nature in its basest con- 
ceivable aspect. The New World may have its disap- 
pointments in store for us — but it cannot possibly show 
us any spectacle so abject as the spectacle which we wit- 
nessed last night at my aunt’s ball. 

‘Lady Janet marked her sense of the proceeding 
adopted by her guests, by leaving them to themselves. 
Her guests remained and supped heartily notwithstand- 
ing. They all knew by experience that there were no 
stale dishes and no cheap wines at Mablethorpe House. 
They drank to the end of the bottle, and they ate to the 
last truffle in the pie. 

‘Mercy and I had an interview with my aunt up- 





















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